Common Frameworks of Networking and Information-Sharing for Advanced Rescue Systems

Networking and information-sharing task force aims to develop common frameworks of robust networking and flexible information-sharing, which help to collect sensing data about damages and to control search-and-rescue devices like robots, sensor networks, PDA, and so on. Collecting disaster information at damaged area is the most important activity to help decision-making in rescue process, while normal infrastructure of information and communication itself is also damaged by the disaster. Ad-hoc network with wireless communication is one of important candidates to provide robust communication infrastructure. Our task force tries to figure out requirements of robot and sensor networks for search-and-rescue and tune-up middle-ware of ad-hoc networks for it. We also focus on common protocol to gather disaster information. Because the information will be provided by various types of sensors, robots and PDAs, quality of information depends on performance of the devices, conditions of environment, and human-factors. The common protocol should permit the wide-variated qualities of information