On the Eikonal Equation in the Pedestrian flow Problem

• ID: 2751, RIV: 10332292
• ISSN: 0094-243X, ISBN: 978-0-7354-1538-6
• source: 14th International Conference of Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics 2016
• keywords: Eikonal equation; pedestrian flow problem; hyperbolic system
• authors: Jiří Felcman, Petr Kubera
• authors from KNM: Felcman Jiří

Abstract

We consider the Pedestrian Flow Equations (PFEs) as the coupled system formed by the Eikonal equation and the first order hyperbolic system with the source term. The hyperbolic system consists of the continuity equation and momentum equation of fluid dynamics. Specifying the social and pressure forces in the momentum equation we come to the assumption that each pedestrian is trying to move in a desired direction (e.g. to the exit in the panic situation) with a desired velocity, where his velocity and the direction of movement depend on the density of pedestrians in his neighborhood. Usually the desired direction of movement is given by the solution of the Eikonal equation (more precisely by the gradient of the solution). Here we avoid the solution of the Eikonal equation, which is the noveltyof the paper. Based on the fact that the solution of the Eikonal equation has the meaning of the shortest time to reach the exit, we define explicitly such a function in the framework of the Dijkstra's algorithm for the shortest path in the graph. This is done at the discrete level of the solution. As the graph we use the underlying triangulation, where the norm of each edge is density depending and has the dimension of the time. The numerical examples of the solution of the PFEs with and without the solution of the Eikonal equation are presented.