A nature-inspired decentralized trust model to reduce information unreliability in complex disaster relief operations

One of the foremost challenges confronting society today is the vulnerability of critical physical infrastructures in urban areas to extreme events. The major challenge in these scenarios despite the availability of the means of communication (e.g. ad-hoc networks, hand held devices) is the lack of trust among the first responders due to their having no prior experience of interactions amongst themselves. Also the spreading of inaccurate or misleading information can have disastrous consequences in the chaotic and hazardous environments which are prevalent in large-scale disasters. Therefore it is imperative that the responders possess the ability to assess and evaluate the trustworthiness as well as the information propagated by fellow responders in order to facilitate collaboration. This paper presents a decentralized trust model to enhance reliable information dissemination in large-scale disasters. The model proposed includes a distributed recommendation scheme, incorporated into an existing membership maintenance service for ad-hoc networks. In addition it has a nature-inspired activation spreading mechanism that allows trust-based information propagation. Search and Rescue exercises involving civil engineers and firefighters were conducted at the Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI) to test the software. The upshot of the simulation was immediate and robust establishment of trust and high resilience to the spread of the unreliable information.