An unknown number of terrorists opened fire and hurled grenades, when a group of 40 Marine commandos entered Hotel Taj Mahal, which was seized during the 2008 Mumbai attack. By the time firing stopped, the gunmen had slipped away into the maze of corridors and passageways. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The Hotel became such a weak link, when no one was able to provide any information to the Marines about the layout of the building. As a result of this, was a three-day hide-and-seek game that resulted in several casualties.

Today technology exists that, if properly deployed, could have not only assisted the Marines in their endeavor, but could have also helped forestall such an event from even occurring.

Now the new Amrita Multi Dimensional Data Analytics (AMuDA) Lab at the Coimbatore campus will work to enhance and develop cost-effective technologies that can prevent such disasters from happening.

The lab was inaugurated on November 8, 2012, and will be supported with funding received from the Department of Science and Technology (DST).The project will be led by Dr. Vidhya Balasubramanian, Associate Professor; Dr. Latha Parameswaran, Professor and Ms. Smrithi Rekha V., Assistant Professor, all of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

“With the help of sensors inside a building for object tracking and localization, the goal of our project is to create a hierarchical extendible data model for indoor information,” explained Dr. Vidhya.

“An indoor information system should not only allow users to view the layout of a building but should also enable querying for information such as exit ways, paths, location of rooms, etc. It should also be able to identify other entities in the buildings like utilities, objects like tables, shelves, etc.,” she further added.
“Using a spatio-temporal database, the represented data is easily stored and queried. This database can provide information on moving objects which occupy only one position at a time, helping track them,” she elaborated.

The new lab will take up research in the areas of Spatio Temporal Data Management, Indoor Geographic Information System (GIS), Testing and Development for Indoor Data, High Dimensional Data Analytics and Multimedia Information Retrieval.

Systems developed can be deployed in many buildings with different applications such as in hospitals to query for patients’ rooms.

“The growth in pervasive computing has opened the flood gates for many exciting applications for better health-care, more effective emergency response, energy-efficient building solutions, smart and intelligent infrastructures, and inclusive and accessible education. The foundation for pervasive systems is spatial-temporal databases, and specifically indoor information systems, since many of the applications operate indoors,” concluded Dr. Vidya.

December 5, 2012
School of Engineering, Coimbatore