IntCris: A tool for enhanced communication and collective decision-making during crises

Responding to a large-scale disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane is a collective problem. Human agents are increasingly collaborating with non-human agents (autonomous systems) in attempt to respond to a disaster. IntCris is a prototype intended to bring together interaction for human and non-human agents to aid the decision-making process by focusing on how to facilitate the “correct information to the correct agent” problem as well as encouraging new and agile behaviour. We focus on three categories of information: command, report and personal with a formal grammar to accompany the implementation. The requirements for the software were inspired by real life case studies from Hurricane Katrina, the Fukoshima Nuclear Disaster and Hurricane Sandy. The contribution of this work is to advance technology that brings together HAS (human and autonomous system interaction), in addition to enhancing collective intelligence.