Rapid Deployment Wireless Text Messaging Network for Disaster Relief

Author

Li, Houmin ; Branscomb, David ; Johnson, Ashton ; Baginski, Michael ; Riggs, Lloyd ; Thomas, Gwynedd

fYear

2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

3

Abstract

Public communication infrastructures are vulnerable to catastrophic events and are often incapacitated when disaster hits. An airborne Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) with Global Special Mobile (GSM) Short Message Service (SMS) capability is proposed as a rapidly deployable emergency communication network (ECN) solution. A SMS-WSN ECN node prototype is developed and encapsulated in a weatherproof and airdrop capable shell. A cargo aircraft loaded with the ECN nodes can be quickly deployed to an affected area. Thousands of nodes can be distributed to form a complementary SMS network capable of relaying text messages among all GSM users. Test results verified the viability of relaying GSM text messages via WSN link, thus proved the concept of providing SMS among cellular users during disaster, to assist in saving human life.

Keywords

aircraft communication; cellular radio; disasters; electronic messaging; wireless sensor networks; ECN solution; GSM; SMS; airborne WSN; airborne wireless sensor network; airdrop capable shell; cargo aircraft; disaster relief; emergency communication network solution; global special mobile; public communication infrastructure; rapid deployment wireless text messaging network; short message service; Batteries; Communication networks; GSM; Hurricanes; Radio frequency; Silicon; Wireless sensor networks;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Wireless Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing (WiCOM), 2011 7th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Wuhan

ISSN

2161-9646

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-6250-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/wicom.2011.6038695

Filename

6038695