The use of RFID tags to support the post-disaster recovery of utility infrastructure

The smart, IT-enabled infrastructure requires utilities to geospatially map their facilities and be able to locate them quickly after they get buried or broken during disasters., In this paper, we describe a collaboration between a university research centre, a manufacturer, a utility, and a city who worked together to map facilities near beaches along the US Gulf Coast. The team tested three technologies, GPS, RFID, and magnetic locators, both individually and in combination, and discovered that using all three together gave the best results. The new device and system developed as a result of this study has the potential to become an important element in disaster preparedness. Given that there are millions of kilometres of infrastructure networks around the world, a new industry needs to develop that digitises utilities' facilities, stores this information, locates the facilities quickly after a disaster, and uses cloud-computing to hasten the recovery process. Copyright © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.