Abstract:
In critical situations like disaster relief operations the requirement for a rapidly
deployable, robust to failures and easily maintainable communication network is
highlighted. The reason behind this is even though communication and exchange of
information are the cornerstones of any disaster response for informed decision making,
in most of the disaster situations conventional communication systems collapse
completely or partially. Most widely used post disaster communication systems are half
duplex walkie talkie systems and service provider dependent callout systems. Use of
portable Wi-Fi Ad-hoc networks for establishing communication in a post disaster
situation in order to coordinate field activities of rescue crews can solve many problems
that exist in currently used systems for such a situation.In this paper, a wireless Ad-hoc
network architecture is proposed to promptly insure communication means to grasp the
information within the disaster area for rescue teams and disaster survivors. Core of the
network is created using Wi-Fi nodes by adopting the Ad-hoc paradigm. These portable
nodes can be installed in the disaster affected area so that they inter communicate while
rescue members and survivors having Wi-Fi devices can also connect to these nodes. At
least one of the nodes in an area has a long distance transceiver unit in order to establish
communication with a distanced data centre. For redundancy several such transceiver
units can be used in a network. A prototype system is constructed to evaluate the
function of the network and its performance through several disaster applications such
as VoIP, file transferring, broadcasting warnings and peer to peer texting.
