Objectives: In WP3 we investigate the relation between groups of end users and the design of extreme wireless distributed systems, concentrating on support for crowd management applications.

The investigation focuses on the assumption that we can influence crowd behavior if the (or some) members of a crowd are connected to a physical social network of devices that could inform them about the situation they are in. The information gathered from the crowd could be positioning, movement and direction data. The information provided to the crowd could be directions towards safe places, points of interest, or for example crowd density information or information on potential danger.

In this project we have to make concepts such as crowd membership, crowd behavior, context and control methods operational. And validate, via simulation and experimentation if they work. We will try to answer questions like: How to provide people with different sorts of information and how to do it in such a way that they will be accepting the implicit controls. How can we monitor and make sense of their original behavior and their response to the information stimuli that we want to provide. What is a workable temporal latency between observing and responding to certain type of behavior, i.e. what are the maximum allowable delays between observation and control stimuli. In terms of applications, one can also think of applications other than ‘avoiding disasters due to crowd behavior’. E.g., trying to control the distribution of people over a certain area, for example in a zoo or on a railway platform or in a museum or stadium, etc.