A framework of intelligent environment with smart-active objects (IESAO) for flexible and efficient crowd simulation

Agent-based crowd simulation has been widely applied in the analysis of evacuation safety under disastrous and terrorist circumstances. In crowd simulation, the virtual environment plays an important role in influencing human behavior and defining the scenario. The concepts of informed environment and smart objects have been adopted to improve the realism of the simulation by embedding semantic information in the environment. However, there is no formal approach of using these concepts in crowd simulation. In this paper, we propose a flexible and efficient framework of Intelligent Environment with Smart and Active Objects (IESAO). We properly define different types of entities and interactions, and describe the approach of modeling environment-related behavior in the intelligent environment. This framework gives a new perspective of modeling human behavior in the design phase. An implementation and a case study are discussed to show the flexibility and efficiency of this framework.