International Journal of Informatics Society, VOL.16, NO.1 (2024) 23-32

23

Regular Paper

Development of a Safety Confirmation Collection System in a Time of Disasters
Using Q-ANPI Service Linked with Web Interface
Mitsuki Sano*, Keiichi Abe**

Kanagawa Institute of Technology, Atsugi City, Kanagawa, Japanabelab.sano.0914@gmail.com, abe@he.kanagawa-it.ac.jp

Abstract -In the future, when a large-scale wide-areadisaster as Nankai Trough Earthquake occurs in Japan, there
is a possibility of the loss of electric power andcommunication infrastructure. In such a case, a Q-ANPI
service for collecting information on the safety of disastervictims using the Quasi-Zenith Satellite MICHIBIKI, which
can cover the entire country, would be very anticipated to be
useful. The Q-ANPI system allows the use of smartphones
for registering safety information on the refuge management
PC. However, this requires a special application for Q-ANPI
installed on the smartphones in advance. Therefore, ssmartphone without this application cannot be used if thecommunication infrastructure for smartphones is cut off due
to a large-scale disaster, etc. For this reason, the Q-ANPI
service cannot fully exhibit its advantages despite the use of
the information and communication technology.
In order to solve this problem, this research describes atechnology that allows users to input safety informationfrom a general web browser without using a dedicated app.
We also propose a method to operate the system with lower
power consumption than the conventional Q-ANPI service
system.

Keywords: QZSS-MICHIBIKI, Victims information,
Q-ANPI service, Refuge Management System．

1

INTRODUCTION

In the future, when a wide-area disaster such as the Great
East Japan Earthquake occurs, there is a possibility of theloss of electric power and communication infrastructure. In
fact, when the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred, ICT(Information and Communication Technology) could not be
fully utilized, making it impossible to promptly disseminate
information on disaster victims, etc. [1]-[6]. To solve these
problems, we have developed a Refuge Management
System (hereinafter referred to as RMS) [7]. This RMS [7]utilizes ICT to collect information on disaster victims ineach shelter and to manage the long-term health of each
victim, and can transmit the collected victim information via
simple radio communication, such as amateur radio, as wellas other means. The information collected by this RMS can
also be stored in a USB flash memory and be taken out
manually. RMS can manage on a shelter-by-shelter basis.
However, assuming a scenario in which a wide-areadisaster such as a major NANKAI Trough earthquake
occurs in Japan in the future, it is necessary to manage

disaster victims in a wide-area rather than on a shelter-byshelter basis. As a solution to this problem, we havepreviously proposed a wide-area disaster victim
management system [8] in which RMSs are installed in each
evacuation center, and all evacuation centers and disastervictims can be managed centrally by linking these RMSs incloud.
However, there are two issues with this approach. The firstpoint is that the RMS requires an environment that can beconnected to the Internet even in the event of acommunications infrastructure cutoff. Second, a wide-areadisastervictimmanagement
systemdeveloped
independently will require considerable sales efforts to be
accepted by local governments, making it difficult to spreadthe system. As a technology to solve these problems, there isa safety information service, Q-ANPI, using the QuasiZenith Satellite MICHIBIKI [9] promoted by the Secretariatof the Strategic Secretariat for Space Policy andManagement, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan.
MICHIBIKI covers the entire communication area of Japan,
and the Q-ANPI service is promoted by the Cabinet Office,so it is easy to be accepted by local governments, etc.
Therefore, we considered this technology to be a solution
to the problem. Therefore, this study focused on the Q-ANPI
service. Currently, Q-ANPI provides two input interfaces forregistering the safety information of disaster victims on a
refuge management PC installed in the refuge. One is todownload a smartphone application to a smartphone used bya disaster victim, and register the victim's safety informationon the refuge management PC. The second method is toregister the information directly on the PC using a keyboard.
In the case of registration using a dedicated smartphone
application, when the communication infrastructure is cut
off due to a large-scale disaster, those who have installed the
dedicated application on their own smartphones in advancecan register their safety information from their smartphones.
However, those who had not installed the application
beforehand would not be able to download the dedicatedapplication during the communication infrastructure
breakdown, and would not be able to register their safety
information from their smartphones. For this reason, safety
information may also be registered directly from the refuge
management PC (Personal Computer) using a keyboard. In
the midst of a large-scale disaster, if a large number ofpeople register directly on the refuge management PC, agreat deal of congestion will probably occur. Therefore, we
believe that the current Q-ANPI system will not be able to

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M.Sano et al. / Development of a Safety Confirmation Collection System in a Time of Disasters Using Q-ANPI Service Linked with Web Interface

take full advantage of the convenience of inputting safety
information from smartphones in the event of a large-scaledisaster when the communication infrastructure is cut off. In
addition, when electricity and communication infrastructure
are cut off due to a large-scale disaster, it is also necessary
to operate the refuge management PC with low power
consumption when collecting safety information on the
refuge management PC.
This paper describes a technology proposed to solve thisproblem. It also describes the development of the prototype
system proposed in this paper and the evaluation of theeffectiveness of the system from various perspectives,
including an actual simulated evacuation drill using theprototype system and the results of a demonstrationquestionnaire evaluation.
In Chapter 2, we provide an overview of the Q-ANPI
service. Chapter 3 describes the position of this study withrespect to related studies, and Chapter 4 gives an overview
of the proposed system and the system flow. Chapter 5
evaluates the proposed system, and Chapter 6 presents theconclusion.

2

Q-ANPI SERVICE
Session 2 will introduce existing Q-ANPI services.

2.1 Overview of Q-ANPI Service
Q-ANPI [9] is a safety confirmation service for disastervictims using the Quasi-Zenith Satellite "MICHIBIKI",
which is promoted by the National Space Policy Secretariat,
Cabinet Office, Government of Japan. Figure 1 shows an
overview of Q-ANPI. The Q-ANPI service consists of a QANPI refuge management PC for collecting information on
disaster victims and a Q-ANPI terminal for communicatingwith the Quasi-Zenith Satellite "MICHIBIKI", as shown in
Figure 1. The communication between the Q-ANPI terminal
and the Quasi-Zenith Satellite "MICHIBIKI" is in the 2 GHz
band, the communication between the Q-ANPI terminal andthe refuge management PC is in the 920 MHz band, and thecommunication between the refuge management PC andsmartphones is via Wi-Fi. The victims in the refuge canregister their safety confirmation information in the refuge
management PC from their smartphones or other devices
using a dedicated application.
There are two ways to register, one is to send it via
wireless communication, and the other is to display a QR
code and read it into the refuge management PC using a web
camera. After that, the safety information collected by the
refuge management PC is sent to the QZSS server via the QANPI communication terminal and the Quasi-Zenith
Satellite "MICHIBIKI". The QZSS server is the control
station server where various items of information such as the
refuge information, victims information, detｋailed refuge
information, and rescue support information are stored. In
addition to smartphones, disaster victims can also register
their safety information directly on the refuge management
PC. In Q-ANPI, telephone number is used as the ID number
for confirming the safety of a disaster victim, and relativesof the victim can confirm the safety of the victim byentering the victim's telephone number on the QZSS server's
safety confirmation Web site. In addition, the system allows
related ministries, agencies, and local governments in chargeof disaster prevention to access the QZSS server via theInternet to monitor the evacuation status of each evacuationsite. There is no charge for using the Q-ANPI system and nocommunication fees.

2.2 Registration of Safety Information ofDisaster Victim
Figure 2 shows the procedure for registering the safety
information of individual disaster victims. There are two
methods for registering the safety information of individual
disaster victims.
The first method is to enter the information directly into
the refuge management PC. Fig. 3(a) shows the registration
screen of the refuge management PC. The registeredinformation includes telephone number, name, date of birth,
gender, admission/exit status, whether or not to disclose,
address, presence or absence of injuries, need for nursing
care, presence or absence of disabilities, and presence orabsence of pregnant women.
The second method of registration is through asmartphone application. Fig. 3(b) shows the smartphone
application registration screen. This registration application
is available on iOS and Android smartphones. The personalsafety information entered in the smartphone application canbe transferred to the Q-ANPI information collection
management PC by two methods. One is to display a QR
code on the smartphone application and hold it over thecamera of the Q-ANPI information collection management
PC to transfer the safety information to the Q-ANPI
information collection management PC. The other method isto transmit the safety information via Wi-Fi. The contents
registered on the dedicated application are the same as thoseregistered on the Q-ANPI information management PC.

Figure 1: Overview of Q-ANPI service.

Figure 2: Victim safety information registration method.

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Table 1: Types of information handled by the Q-ANPI
service.

Figure 3: Victim safety information registration screen.

refuges regarding rescue support. (1), (2), and (3) are
information transmitted from refuges, while (4) is
information addressed to refuges. Of these four types of
information handled by the Q-ANPI service, only the
information (2) is used in this study, i.e., the information on
the safety of individual disaster victims. The information
volume of the personal safety information for disastervictims is 84 bits.
Figure 4: Safety information confirmation screen on thedisaster prevention organization server.

2.3 Safety Confirmation atSatellite Control Station Server

Quasi-Zenith

Figure 4 shows a page of the safety confirmation site of
the QZSS server on the Internet. If the safety confirmationof the victim has been registered in advance, the safety
status of the victim can be confirmed by entering thevictim's phone number and pressing the search button on the
QZSS server's safety confirmation site shown in Fig. 4.

2.4 Types of Information Handled by QANPI Service
Table 1 shows the types of information handled by the QANPI service. The types of data handled by Q-ANPI can bebroadly classified into (1) through (4) as shown in Table 1.
(1) Refuge information is information on the location andclosure/opening of the refuge. (2) Personal safety
information is information on the safety of individual
disaster victims, such as personal numbers (telephone
numbers) and whether safety information should be
disclosed or not. (3) Detailed refuge information includes
the number of injured people, shortage of supplies, etc. (4)Rescue support information is information addressed to

3

RELATED WORKA previous study of disaster victim information
dissemination in response to a wide-area disaster is the RMS
development [7]. This RMS utilizes ICT to collectinformation on disaster victims in each refuge and to
manage the long-term health of each victim and can transmit
the collected disaster victim information. The RMS cantransmit information by simple radio communication andamateur radio, in addition to storing disaster victim
information on USB flash memory devices and allowing
users to manually take it outside. This RMS can be managed
on a shelter-by-shelter basis.
However, assuming a wide-area disaster such as the
Nankai Trough earthquake that is expected in the future, it isnecessary to manage victims in a wide-area rather than in
refuge. As a solution to this problem, we have previously
proposed a wide-area disaster victim management system[8]in which RMSs are installed in each refuge, and all refuges
and disaster victims can be managed centrally by linking
these RMSs with a cloud server.
However, there are two problems with this approach.
First, it requires an environment that can be connected to theInternet even when the communication infrastructure is cut
off. Second, a wide-area disaster victim management systemdeveloped independently by a private sector will require

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considerable sales efforts to be accepted by local
governments, making it difficult to spread the system.
Q-ANPI, a safety information service using the QuasiZenith Satellite MICHIBIKI [9] promoted by the Secretariatof the Strategic Secretariat for Space Policy, Cabinet Office,
Government of Japan, exists as a technology to solve these
problems. The Quasi-Zenith Satellite MICHIBIKI cancommunicate throughout Japan even in the event of a largescale disaster, and the Q-ANPI service is promoted by the
Cabinet Office, making it easy to be accepted by local
governments. In particular, since the control station servers
used in Q-ANPI are owned by the national government, they
are more easily accepted by local governments than thosedeveloped by a private sector. This technology can therefore
be used to solve the two issues mentioned above. Therefore,
this study focuses on the Q-ANPI service.
As described in section 2.2, the current Q-ANPI provides
two input interfaces for collecting information on disastervictims. One is to download a dedicated smartphone
application and register the safety information of disastervictims through the application, and the other is to input andregister the safety information directly from the Q-ANPI
refuge management PC using a keyboard. In the case of theregistration method using a dedicated smartphone
application, assuming a scenario in which thecommunication infrastructure is cut off for a long period oftime due to a large-scale disaster, those who have installed
the dedicated application in advance can register their safety
information, but those who have not installed it will not beable to download the dedicated application during thecommunication infrastructure cut-off period. For this reason,
the current system additionally allows people to register
their safety information directly from the refuge
management PC using a keyboard. Since it is assumed thatone such PC will be placed in each refuge, a great deal ofcongestion will probably occur if there are a large number ofpeople registering directly on the refuge management PC.
Therefore, the authors believe that the current system (QANPI) cannot fully utilize the advantages of using asmartphone.
On the other hand, the previous study on the Q-ANPI
service proposed a system [10] that can collect safety
information of disaster victims more widely than theconventional Q-ANPI service by combining Q-ANPI and ad
hoc communication of smartphones. The proposed system isvery useful when disaster victims do not know how toaccess Wi-Fi access points in the refuge, when they cannot
connect to the refuge management PC, or when collecting
safety information on victims outside of refuges. However,this related technology [10] also has a problem in that it
cannot be used unless a dedicated application is downloadedin advance. In addition, the refuge management PC used in
Q-ANPI uses an ordinary notebook PC, which consumes
more than 12W of electricity. Therefore, the authors believethat in the event of a large-scale disaster, a system that canoperate the refuge management PC with low power
consumption is needed when not only the communication
infrastructure but also the electric power infrastructure is cut
off.

To solve these problems, the authors propose a method for
inputting the safety information of disaster victims using a
Web browser already installed on smartphones. In addition,
we propose a method that can be operated for a longer
period of time than a laptop PC by using a power-saving
embedded system instead of a laptop PC to collectinformation on the safety of disaster victims.

4

PROPOSED TECHNOLOGY

In this study, we considered that Q-ANPI using the
Quasi-Zenith Satellite MICHIBIKI is suitable as a solution
to the issues of loss of communication infrastructure in theevent of a large-scale disaster and ease of acceptance by
local governments and other entities. However, as describedin Chapter 3, when the communication infrastructure is cut
off due to a large-scale disaster, it is expected that Q-ANPI
cannot fully exhibit its merits because the dedicatedapplication for registering safety information fromsmartphones cannot be downloaded. In addition, since therefuge management PC installed in the refuge use an
ordinary laptop PC, they consume a lot of power, andconsidering the case where the power infrastructure is cut
off due to a large-scale disaster, it is essential to operate therefuge management PC with even lower power consumption.
To solve this problem, this study proposes a method to
input the safety information of disaster victims using a Web
browser already installed on smartphones. In addition, thisstudy considers that the power infrastructure will be cut off
at the same time during a large-scale disaster. Therefore, we
propose a highly practical safety information collection
system that is robust even in the event of power
infrastructure failure by linking the Q-ANPI service with a
web server system built on an embedded microcontroller
board that can operate with low power consumption, withoutbuilding a web server and DB (Data Base) on the refuge
management PC.

4.1 Proposed System
Figure 5 shows the system proposed in this study, whichadds a web interface to the conventional Q-ANPI system sothat disaster victims can input safety information from a web
browser of their smartphones. This allows users to entersafety information without using a dedicated app. In
addition, in order to achieve long-term operation even when
the power infrastructure is cut off in the event of a largescale disaster, the Web interface developed by this researchuses a Raspberry PI 3B+ (hereinafter referred to as RPI),
which is a small and low-power-consumption
microcontroller. We created a system in which a web serverand DB (Database) were built on this RPI. Fig. 6 shows theappearance of the prototype developed in this study. The
RPI is used as an intermediary between smartphones owned
by disaster victims and the refuge management PC. When asmartphone owned by a disaster victim connects to the webinterface from its web browser, a page for inputting thevictim's safety information is displayed, as shown in Fig. 7.
When the safety information is entered on this page, it isautomatically registered in the DB in the web interface. This
collects the safety information of multiple victims in a

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refuge. The system then sends the information to the refuge
management PC in a batch. When the person in charge ofthe refuge management presses the data transmission buttonon the application for the refuge management PC, the data
are transmitted to the server of the control station via the
Quasi-Zenith Satellite “MICHIBIKI”. The system enables
relatives of disaster victims to confirm the safety of thevictims by accessing the server of the control station via theInternet.

4.2 How to Display the Safety Information
Input Page from a Smartphone
As with Q-ANPI, the system in this study is built on a
LAN (Local Area Network) with commercially available
Wi-Fi wireless routers. In addition to receiving safety
information from smartphones and the Web interface, therefuge management PC serves as a gateway to the Q-ANPI
terminal (920 MHz). For the connection to the web interface
from a smartphone, the SSID of the Wi-Fi wireless router(in this case, "QANPI_179") is made open to allow
connection to the network without a password. A printout of
the URL of the safety information input page converted intoa QR code is prepared in advance. By holding the QR codeover the camera of a smartphone, anyone can easily display
the safety information input page on the Web interface. This
enables smooth registration of the safety information ofdisaster victims.

Figure 7: Safety information input page screen for disastervictims.

Figure 8: Overview of Web Interface.

4.3 Prototype System of Web Interface

Figure 5: Overview of our proposed system.

Figure 6: Prototype of Web Interface.

Figure 8 shows an overview of the prototype of the webinterface proposed in this paper. The web server was built
on RPI using nginx, and MariaDB was used for the DB. The
reason for using nginx for the web server is to achieve highprocessing speeds that allow multiple inputs of victim
information at the same time. The application for the victim
safety information input interface shown in Fig. 7 wasdeveloped in PHP and HTML languages. The "disastervictim information transmission application," whichtransmits the safety information of disaster victims
registered in the DB server to the refuge management PC,
was developed in python 3.7, and is an application thattransmits all safety information registered in the DB. Since
the application for the refuge management PC automaticallydiscards duplicate information, we decided to use a simple
application that sends all DB data at once. Fig. 6 shows theappearance of the prototype of the Web interface developed
this time. This is a prototype with a web server and DB(Data Base) built on RPI. The Web interface is operated
remotely from a terminal to eliminate the need for a display.

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4.4 Power Operation
Proposed System

Methodof

Our

Assuming that power and communication infrastructures
are cut off in a large-scale disaster, power supply isimportant in a real refuge. To operate the proposed system,
it is considered necessary to use one solar panel and two or
more battery units. One battery unit is used for the refuge
management PC, web interface, wireless router, Q-ANPI
terminal, etc. The other battery unit is charged withelectricity generated by the solar panel, and the batteries
should be exchanged alternately.
Table 2 shows the results of power consumption
measurements for each device used in the proposed
prototype system. Power consumption was measured using a
digital power meter. Among the devices used in thisprototype, the Q-ANPI terminal consumes the largest
amount of power, 15W. The second highest is the refuge
management PC with a maximum of 12W, the third is the
RPI, and the fourth is the wireless router. The RPI alone
used with a Web interface consumes approximately 3W, adramatically low level of power consumption. The Q-ANPI
terminal and the refuge management PC consume a lot of
power. Therefore, when not transmitting data using the
QZSS MICHIBIKI, the Q-ANPI terminal can be turned off,
the refuge management PC can be put to sleep, and longterm. Operation can be achieved with a single battery charge
by having only the proposed Web interface powered on.
Figure 9 shows the operation of the Q-ANPI service using
the proposed system. When collecting safety information,
only the Web interface is put into operation, the Q-ANPI
terminal is turned off, and the refuge management PC is put
into sleep mode. In this way, the overall power consumption
can be reduced to a total of approximately 3.5W during thecollection of safety information. For example, using acommercially available 240Wh portable battery power
supply, the system can be operated for approximately 60
hours on a single charge.

5

EVALUATION

We evaluated the effectiveness of the prototype of thesystem proposed in this study from three perspectives: ademonstration evaluation based on a simulated evacuation
drill, a questionnaire evaluation based on a demonstration,
and a measurement evaluation of the prototype's power
consumption. In the evaluation through a simulated
evacuation drill, we conducted a questionnaire to determine
whether the proposed system is practically usable, andcompared it with the conventional Q-ANPI system todetermine how easy it is to input safety information. In
addition, a questionnaire survey was conducted by
exhibiting a prototype demo to investigate the ease of use of
the proposed system and find points to be improved. We
also evaluated the power consumption of the prototype
system using the Web interface proposed in this study.

Table 2: Power consumption of each device.

Figure 9: Power consumption in Q-ANPI operation method
using proposal method.

5.1 Evaluation through Simulated Evacuation
Drill
A prototype of the proposed system was utilized andevaluated through a simulated evacuation drill. The
simulated evacuation drill was conducted on August 5, 2022,
on the premises of the Kanagawa Institute of Technology.
Figure 10 shows the evacuation route of the simulated drill.
Table 3 shows the schedule of the actual evacuation drill
and the actual action time required. Before the simulated
evacuation drill, one Q-ANPI terminal, one refuge
management PC, one web interface system, one solar panel,and one battery with 240Wh capacity were placed in theformer gymnasium of the university, which served as theevacuation site. It was assumed that a major earthquake
occurred at 14:00. All participants in the evacuation drill
initially hid under desks, and after the earthquake subsided,
they descended the stairs from the classroom (E602) on the
6th floor of Building C2 to the first floor, and then followed
the evacuation route shown in Fig. 10 to the entrance of theuniversity's soccer field. After taking roll call at theevacuation assembly, all the evacuees were moved to the old
gymnasium, which was the evacuation site, where threeevacuation supervisors set up a proposed system and opened
the evacuation desk (Fig. 11). Table 3 records the time fromimmediately after the earthquake until the equipment wasremoved. The time required from the occurrence of a major
earthquake to the gathering at the evacuation site was 9
minutes, which indicates that the evacuation was completed
fairly quickly. The time required to open the evacuation site
was about 8 minutes. Table 4 shows a comparison of the
input time of safety information of disaster victims between
the conventional Q-ANPI and the proposed system. The
proposed system required only about 3 minutes, while theconventional Q-ANPI system required about 11 minutes.

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The proposed system took only about a quarter of the timeof the conventional system. Factors that caused theconventional Q-ANPI system to take such a long time
include the time required to download the dedicatedapplication and the time required to establish a Wi-Fi
connection. The proposed system uses a QR code for easy
access to the safety information input page, which is a major
factor. But, even with the conventional Q-ANPI system, if
the dedicated application is already installed on thesmartphone, the input time taken would be similar to that ofthe proposed system.
Therefore, in the case that the cell phone communication
infrastructure is cut off and the dedicated application is notinstalled on the smartphone in advance, the proposed system
is superior in terms for on-site use in actual disasters.

5.2 Questionnaire Evaluation after Simulated
Evacuation
In the demonstration evaluation through the simulated
evacuation drill, a questionnaire survey was conducted after
the simulated evacuation drill, since personal safety
information was collected by two systems, i.e., theconventional Q-ANPI and the proposed system. The actual
number of participants in the simulated evacuation drill was
9, and 6 males (67% response rate) responded to thequestionnaire. Fig. 12 shows the results of the questionnaire.
To Question 1, "In the event of a large-scale disaster, would
you like to actually use the proposed system used this time,
which uses a browser for data input, in an evacuation
center?", three respondents answered "Yes, I would like to
use it," and three respondents answered "Yes, I would like to
use it somewhat.” This resulted in a high average score of
3.5 on the 4-point scale in which the highest score of 4 wasgiven to "would like to use" and the lowest score of 1 wasgiven to "would not like to use". Next, to Question 2,"Which system was easier to use, the conventional system or
the proposed system?”, 83% of the respondents answeredthat the proposed system was easier to use. Next, in
response to Question 3, "In Question 2, what was easy to
use about the conventional system?”, the answer was"Because there is no need to search in a browser.” In
Question 4, "In Question 2, what was easy to use in the
proposed system?”, five respondents answered "The factthat it can be used without downloading a dedicatedapplication." To Question 5, "Is there any other information
on disaster victims that you think is necessary besides theexisting information (phone number, name, date of birth,
gender, admission status, availability, address, injuries,
assistance needed, disabilities, pregnant women)?”, one
respondent answered, "Information such as pre-existing
medical conditions, family doctor, and medications used ona regular basis would be helpful.” Next, to Question 6,"What do you think needs to be improved in the future
regarding the proposed system?”, as shown in Fig. 12, themost common response to this question was "Type ofevacuee information" (five responses), followed by "Ease of
text input" (two responses).

Figure 10: Evacuation route for simulated evacuation drill.

Figure 11: Overview simulated evacuation drill.
Table 3: Schedule for the Demonstration Experiment.

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Table 4:Comparison of proposed and existing systems interms of victim information input time

5.3 Questionnaire Evaluation through
Demonstration Exhibition of Prototypes
Next, we explained the proposed system to visitors to ouropen campus and asked them to directly see the actual
prototype system and answer a questionnaire. A total of 12
people responded to the questionnaire: seven males (six intheir teens and one in his 40s) and five females (two in theirteens, one in her 20s, one in her 30s, and one in her 50s).
The questionnaire results from this demonstration are shownin Fig. 13. The "score" shown in Fig. 13 is a numerical valuethat represents the average of the responses of the survey
participants. First, as shown in Fig. 13, to Question 1, "Didyou understand the overview of the proposed system thatyou used this time?”, the score was 3.33, which is highcompared to the highest score of 4: 4 respondents answered"well (4)" and 8 respondents answered "somewhat well (3)".
Next, to Question 2, "In the event of a large-scale disaster,would you like to use the proposed system used this time inan actual evacuation center?”, the score was 3.75, which isquite high, with 9 respondents selecting "Yes (4)" and 3
selecting "Yes, somewhat (3)". To Question 3, "How was
the operability of the Q-ANPI system and the proposedsystem?”, Fig. 13 shows that the score of the proposedsystem was 4.25 on the 5-point scale, about 0.50 higher thanthe conventional system whose score was 3.75.
Next, to Question 4, "What are the points to be improvedin the proposed system? (Multiple answers allowed)", many
respondents answered "Ease of input" (6), indicating that the
proposed system needs to be improved in this respect. Other
personal safety information and points to be improved thatthe respondents thought were necessary for the proposedsystem were "family information" and "heavy and congested
Internet connection".

5.4 Measurement and Evaluation ofPrototype Power Consumption
Considering the use of a commercially available 240Wh
battery, it is estimated that the RPI alone can operate forabout 3.36 days. A more power-saving operation could beachieved by using the RPI as a stand-alone device without
the LCD display screen, with the terminal software for the
RPI installed on the refuge management PC so that the RPI's"disaster victim information transmission application" could
be run remotely.

Figure 12: Questionnaire results for simulated evacuation
drill.

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alternately, long-term operation is possible even when the
power infrastructure is cut off.

6

Figure 13: Questionnaire results for the prototype.
It is also considered a good idea to turn on the power ofthe Q-ANPI terminal and the refuge center management PC
only when communicating via the Quasi-Zenith Satellite“MICHIBIKI”, and turn them off and in sleep mode for the
rest of the time.
Assuming such an operation scenario, only the RPI unit
(3W) and the wireless router (2.5W) would be used inconstant operation, so the 240Wh battery would lastapproximately 1.8 days. If the two battery units are operated

CONCLUSION

This paper addressed the issue of Q-ANPI, a service forcollecting safety confirmation information on disastervictims using the Quasi-Zenith Satellite "MICHIBIKI", inthe case that the cell phone communication infrastructure iscut off and the dedicated application is not installed on thesmartphone in advance, and the safety information from thesmartphone owned by the disaster victim cannot beregistered on the refuge management PC. The paper
discussed how to solve this problem. The paper also
discussed energy-efficient operation of PCs used to manage
evacuation centers in the event of a power infrastructure
cutoff. To solve this problem, we proposed a web interface
that enables the input of safety information of disastervictims by utilizing a web browser already installed on
smartphones. This Web interface collects the safety
information of multiple disaster victims, sends it to the
refuge management PC at any given time, and the PC
transmits it to the control station server via the Quasi-Zenith
Satellite MICHIBIKI. This allows safety information to beentered using a web browser already installed on
smartphones without downloading any dedicatedapplications, making it a general-purpose interface. To
reduce the operational power consumption of Q-ANPI, the
Q-ANPI terminal is turned off when collecting safety
information, the refuge management PC is put in sleep mode,and only the Web interface is operated to collect safety
information on disaster victims. It was found that if the QANPI terminal and the refuge management PC are activatedonly when transmitting data to the server at the control
station, the power consumption of the entire system can be
minimized to about 4W.
In a questionnaire survey conducted after the simulation
training, many respondents answered that they would prefer
to use the proposed system rather than the conventional QANPI system, and many of them answered that the proposedsystem was “easier to use.” However, some respondents
pointed out the following points for improvement of the
proposed system: "Ease of text input" and "Types of victim
information.” In addition, we would like to increase thenumber of participants in simulated evacuation drills. The
prototype of the proposed web interface was developed
using RPI of low power consumption.
In the future, if the proposed system and Q-ANPI's
previous research [10] are all successfully linked, it will bepossible to develop a highly realistic system that cansmoothly collect safety information on disaster victims at
actual disaster sites where people are in turmoil.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the
National Space Policy Secretariat, Cabinet Office,
Government of Japan, and the Space Systems Division of
NEC Corporation for their guidance and cooperation inproviding the Q-ANPI service equipment. and We would

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M.Sano et al. / Development of a Safety Confirmation Collection System in a Time of Disasters Using Q-ANPI Service Linked with Web Interface

like to express our sincere gratitude to Mr. Takuma Sato andProf. Masao Isshiki for their cooperation in this study.

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[2] Cabinet Office Government of Japan, "Survey result
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(Received: November 27, 2023)(Accepted: May 16, 2024)

Mitsuki Sano received the B. E. degreefrom Kanagawa Institute of Technology
in 2023.
He is currently engaged in re-search on
ICT disaster support management systems
at Department of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering,
Graduate
SchoolofEngineering, Kanagawa Institute ofTechnology.

Keiichi Abe received a Ph. D. in
informatics from Shizuoka University in2012. He has been a professor of theFaculty of Creative Engineering,
Kanagawa Institute of Technology. His
research interests include smart systemusing IOT technology, Interactive systemusing Robot and CG, and Victims
Information Management System At
large scale disaster, HEMS. He is amember of IPSJ，IEICE, ACM and IEEE.