Getting Out Safe: Navigation Utilizing The ARAIG Suit and Minecraft

This thesis conducts a study into which algorithms and haptic technologies are necessary for assisting first responders in peril. Firefighters run the risk of getting lost and disoriented in unfamiliar emergency environments. This research uses haptic feedback to direct firefighters out of these environments. These haptic instructions are given by the “As Real As It Gets” (ARAIG) suit by IFTech. Due to COVID-19, in order to test these algorithms applied to egress paths, a Minecraft mod is written.

The algorithms for creating a pathway of egress include octree construction, insertion and search, and a modified Dijkstra’s algorithm. The resulting reconstructed egress path is used to create physical haptic instructions for the user. These instructions are conveyed to the ARAIG suit. Finally, four users provide feedback on their interactions with the system. This thesis concludes with proposals for future directions for this research to go in.