Using Cloud Computing Technology to Develop a Emergency Care System on Android Steven K.C. Lo 1 Chi-Ming Chung 2 Chien-Yuan Hunag 3 1 Department of Information Management, Jinwen University of Science and Technology Email:kclo@just.edu.tw 2 Department of Digital Technology Design, National Taipei University of Education Email:cmchung@tea.ntue.edu.tw 3 Department of Computer Science, National Taipei University of Education Email:forhwang@gmail.com Abstract With the rapidly changing era of rapid technological development, network technology and mobilization is an integral part of our life. The new cohort s use rate for smart phones increased significantly, thus enabling mobile to have more opportunities in replacing computer as information dissemination media. Accordingly, this paper using Google Map and GPS, and use cloud computing [1] with 3G wireless networks, build on Android phone platform, a set of Emergency Care System. ECS (Emergency Care System) is an application service for the public system, which integrated messaging system, GPS and application launched by Google Android mobile phone platform, as a wide range of applications. Under construction of the ECS application services, we establish a state of emergency in the event sent to the hospital to be saved through the phone's cloud computing capabilities, then we can learn the nearest or most suitable hospital and to connect to the 119 disaster relief centers to obtain further aid information, as a reference for the emergency hospital. In this study we hope ECS can provide the most immediate emergency relief information, in case of emergency, through mobile phone display location-based information, combined with real-time medical institutions of geographic information navigation system, giving the quick, correct first aid information. We hope in the future ECS can combine medical services to achieve more diversity of integrated application services. 1. Introduction According to information provided by the National Communications Commission (NCC), from the first quarter of 2009, 3G users number exceed the number of 2G users at the first time. Statistics so far (2010) by the end of September, 3G users reached 18.07 million, twice more than 2G users which is shown in Figure 1. In other words, 3G communications area is coming. Future 3G population to access Internet will be increased year by year. The mobile device equipment industry, mobile networks service providers and content providers will also aim at 3G users, constantly replace old ones, to promote the desire of public to use mobile equipment applications. Under the growth of Notebook, Smart Phone, Mobile Phone, etc., action devices bring benefits to our daily life and application of GPS location services also continues to develop in response to the needs of human daily life, coupled with Google launched Android mobile phone platform, in the future it will derive more innovative application. Key Words:Android, GPS,Google Map, 3G, Cloud Computing Figure 1. Number of mobile communication users in Taiwan (Source:Institute for Information Industry FIND) 34
This system combines the GPS and the 3G communication network. The user in an emergency situation, through the Android system and press the associated application, by electronic map, it will display the map of the nearest hospital. It will also propose the navigation route, suggest the relevant emergency information, connect to 119 disaster relief centers etc., so that users can grasp the fastest time of the gold relief. Since 319 shooting occurred in 2004 presidential election resulted in the question of hospital route planning and even in recent events, many news of delays in sending patient to the nearest hospital because not clear about hospital route, therefore I ponder in the event of an emergency, how to master the best time and choose the route to the hospital in order to save patient s life is extremely important. I ponder how to use smart phones to combine GPS satellite positioning, 3G wireless network, Google Map etc. free loaded data resources to show nearby hospitals, calculate the shortest distance, plan the best route for navigation and during rescue and transport process, use related first aid information provided by the system, provide the patient immediate emergent treatment, telephone report to hospital and 119 disaster relief centers etc., hoping to take full advantage of modern technology tools to achieve the purpose of saving people in danger. the number of Android applications to turn around and drive the growth of Android phone users. Even if the performance of Android phones will not exceed iphone, it should be just about the same. Apple s iphone is merely manufactured by Apple, but Android phones will be made by many mobile phone manufacturers, so the world consumers will have more Android phones to choose from. Android platform built-in Gmail, Google Maps and other Internet services, will change the user's surfing habits. Based on free and open spirit, the entire platform is built by opensource software. It is expected to bring great impact on the mobile phone industry. Android System Architecture Introduction [3] is shown in Figure 2. The entire system architecture can be divided into five major architectures: (1) application layer (Application) (2) application framework layer (Application Framework). (3) library layer (Libraries) (4) execution layer (Android Runtime) (5) operating system layer (Linux Kernel) 2. Related Works In this thesis research relating to ECS, the following documents will be used to explore the theme. 2.1 Android Android is a Linux-based (Kernel) open-source operating system. Android platform supports advanced networking, graphics, 3D processing power, and facilitate users to develop various applications [2]. Android application development uses the Java language, Google provides a free cross-platform development environment (Windows, Linux, Mac), Simulator (Emulator), and system development tools (SDK). Android phones will use the touch-screen technology to support video, music, high-definition pictures and Wi-Fi etc. technology. At the same time, it also integrates Google Maps, Gmail etc. applications. In addition, Android platform will pre-install a high-performance mobile browser. Google had previously released to the public the Android software development kit (SDK), and the purpose was to attract outside developers to develop a large number of applications for the Android mobile phone software. They look forward to the growth in Figure 2. Android Platform (Source:iT 人 -theiter) In the Android application layer, you can use JAVA programming language for developing applications quickly. In this study I will utilize the most watched Android functions such as: GPS, Google Map, Gmail, SMS, etc. Through the application framework layer allows JAVA program runs more quickly and facilitate the develop and use the functions described above. Android's target is to provide an application framework to allow mobile phone companies may not develop software from the beginning then can quickly launch Android platform for mobile phones. Mobile software developers can also through the application framework level, quickly and conveniently use each function on mobile phone. 35
2.2 GPS & A-GPS GPS (Global Positioning System) was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense from 1973 and completed in the beginning of 1995. It equips with real-time three-dimensional space with a full range of positioning capabilities. It is a satellite-based positioning system, and currently uses the system composed of 24 satellites from about 20,000 km high, and circles the earth in about 11 hours and 58 minutes. GPS receiver uses of this information to calculate the distance between the satellite and itself and get coordinates. In addition to the transmission rate limit, the satellite s quantity and distribution, message strength, and the receiver s angle on the sky, etc., may affect time of first positioning time and location s accuracy, so the A-GPS technology grows spontaneously. A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) is to use base stations to aid positioning, so you can rule out the foregoing unfavorable factors may be caused by GPS. Because the network speed is getting faster, the satellite information can be transited within seconds allowing the time of first positioning to be reduced significantly. App Engine) [4], the cloud computing brought up the entire industry trend. It has been seen as an important opportunity for the next generation industry [5]. Simply speaking, "cloud computing" is a cloud. In it there is a massive computing capabilities, so that the cloud we refer to is the network. When observing Figure 4, as we have just mentioned, the whole network is like a cloud, we can directly throw all we need to compute into the cloud and let the powerful servers in the cloud to help us to do operations on it. Figure 4. Cloud Computing (Source: http://teknoinfo.web.id) 3.ECS System Architecture and Analysis 3.1 System Architecture Figure 3. AGPS Service Architecture (Source: Global Sources) This thesis uses GPS positioning with 3G wireless network applications. After using GPS positioning to obtain the current latitude and longitude and then load into system database, and then calculate the location of the nearest hospital, plan the path, provide related emergency information, and fast connection to 119 disaster relief centers and hospitals and other functions shown in Figure 5. Android platform mobile phones will through 3G wireless networks, use of program to compute and provide users with the fastest real-time information. In the current smart phone market, most of them have both the function of GPS and AGPS services. Except to allow mobile phones to positioning more accurately and rapidly, it also can increase the number of applications for consumer to use. 2.3 Cloud Computing Cloud computing is an extension of the concept. Through the combination of computer and internet services make the services provided more convenient to us. When Google released in 2008 GAE (Google Figure 5. Illustration of network structure 36
The whole system is through cloud computing, including information collection, transmission, processing, storage, retrieval, analysis process, so the flow of information refers to information processing information in computer systems and the Internet s flow shown in Figure 6. USER (1).ECS APP() (3).OfferInfo() 119 Emergency Dispatch Center (2).SearchInfo() (3).ReturnInfo() AP Server (4).NotifyEven() Ambulance (4).NotifyEven() (5).ReceiveMsg() GPS Hospital (6).ReturnArrive() (7).ReturnEnding() CLOUD INTERNET (8).RecordEven() USER FIREWALL WEBSERVER SQSERVER 3G 119 Quick Report Figure 8. Sequence Diagram 119 Emergency Dispatch Center Figure 6. 3.2 System Analysis Ambulance System Information Flow Sign in using the system to load the main screen feature, designed for users to select from related functions. After loading in system database, it can provide hospital information, maps, navigation and first aid treatment and other services. In emergency it can report quickly for help. The system can upload caller s condition and the GPS positioning data to the 119 disaster relief center for rescue reference as shown in Figure 7. (1) Help seeker clicks ECS APP, direct dial-up to 119 disaster relief centers for reporting, and the system will clearly mark the location of the callers. During hearing help seeker s explanation, the rescue workers can first find the closest ambulances and hospitals. (2)(3) In accordance with help seeker s condition, give the best first aid treatment method orally and transmit the treatment method to the caller s cell phone. (4) If the caller were in a serious situation, it can directly send messages to the nearest and idle ambulance to ambulance: caller location, best traffic path, the nearest hospital and to caller: ambulance estimated time of arrival, the current ambulance location. (5) When ambulance receives the message, clicks the event receiver button, and the message will be sent back to the 119 disaster relief center. (6) After the ambulance arrives and receives caller, click the rescue button, and message will be sent back to the 119 disaster relief center. (7) Ambulance sends caller to the hospital, click the closed button, and the message will be sent back to the 119 disaster relief center. (8) 119 disaster prevention and rescue center will record this case in the back-end AP SERVER. 4. System Implementation Figure 7. System functions Definitions and methods of operation sequence diagrams is shown in Figure 8. The main purpose is to use the case statement in the normal flow process, and the interaction between objects. In other words, sequence diagram s main database source in fact is the use case narration. Google provides a complete development resources for Android, including ADT, Android Emulator as shown in Figure 9 and other related tools. Developers can use Eclipse with ADT to develop Android applications, and Android Emulator provide the developers an test environment required no practical hardware, facilitating the test of self-developed Android related programs, to achieve pre-debugging and shorten the development time etc. benefits. 37
Another objective for Google to develop Android Emulator is to accelerate the whole world s Android developer s developing speed so as to keep pace with iphone developer. Android SDK contains Android Emulator, Debugging Tools, and other related development tools. Program main screen Main function of the screen contains parameters functional options, hospital information, first aid treatment, call to 119 disaster relief centers, and features for users to select. Figure 9. Android SDK The implementation part of this paper, the development environment is installed on personal computer for exploiting Android simulator [6]. After developed then operate in the real machine. The following is the software and hardware used: The various software and hardware used for development Simulator version of Android SDK 2.1 [7] Software tools Eclipse3.6 Real machine version of HTC Magic [8] Figure 11. Main Menu System Function screen After selecting the functional options, you can enter the system function screen. Phone application screen Mobile phone screen s ECS APP is the main screen of this system application. After clicking we can enter the system functions of the main screen. Figure 12. First aid processing Figure 10. Mobile Menu 38
Ambulance rescue screen After calling 119 disaster relief hotline, according to the GPS information to dispatch the nearest ambulance to rescue. 5. Conclusions Figure 13. Ambulance position The evolution of technology is changing rapidly. There will be more updated creation and technology developed on the network every day. But what can be expected is that mobile communication will be the mainstream of future development. Android and cloud computing is very popular now and is also two highly developmental technique in the future. In this paper, we use the Android s advanced platform to design ECS (Emergency Care System), using 3G wireless networks and successful connect with the Google cloud. It allows users, through mobile phone quickly know their current location and can upload their own location to the Google cloud, so that those who want to know where they are can know his position through the clouds. The most important use of this research is to be used as a relief. When users have emergency, in addition to self-help, they can also allow the rescue workers through the Google cloud to find their location, so as to make full use of cloud technology and features. It is very helpful for emergency relief work. 6. References [1] Shuai Zhang, Shufen Zhang, Xuebin Chen, and Xiuzhen Huo, "Cloud Computing Research and Development Trend", IEEE Conf. Hebei Polytechnic University College of Science Hebei Polytechnic University, 2010 Second International Conference on Future Networks, pp. 93-97, 2010. [2] John Whipple, William Arensman Marian Starr, and Boler "A Public Safety Application of GPS-Enabled Smartphones and the Android Operating System", Information Systems Engineering Department Southwest Research Institute, Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics San Antonio, TX, USA, pp. 2059-2061, 2009. [3] Xianhua Shu, Zhenjun Du, and Rong Chen "Research on Mobile Location Service Design Based on Android", IEEE Conf. School of Information Science and Technology Dalian Maritime University Dalian, China, pp. 1-4, 2009. [4] Google App Engine, Available: http://code.google.com/intl/zh-tw/appengine/ [5] Shufen Zhang Shuai Zhang Xuebin Chen Shangzhuo Wu, Analysis and Research of Cloud Computing System Instance, International Conference on Future Networks, ICFN '10., pp. 88 92, 2010. [6] Jolle, "Jollen s Android book", 2009, Available: http://www.jollen.org/blog/2008/12/jollenandroid-programming-1.html [7] Android developers, Available: http://developer.android.com/intl/zh-tw/index.html [8] HTC, Available: http://www.htc.com/www/ [9] The androids are coming, Engineering & Technology 24 may - 6 June 2008. [11] Understanding Android Security, IEEE Security & Privacy 2009. [12] First Google s Android Phone Launched, IEEE VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE, DECEMBER 2008. [13] Python, Available: http://blog.seety.org/everydaywork/2008/4/7/100 7/ 39