Cooperative terminals for Incident Area Networks

Past crises all over the world (09/11, tsunami, etc.) have highlighted the importance of the availability of critical up-to-date information in real-time at the place where required. The key need is, consequently, for reliable communication systems to coordinate emergency operations even when existing infrastructures are damaged. In this case, rapidly deploying ad-hoc networks in the disaster area is a feasible solution. Incident Area Network (IAN), are self-forming temporary network infrastructures brought to the scene of an incident to support personal and local communications among different public safety end-users. This paper aims at defining the system architecture of IANs where the cooperation among terminals is foreseen. Furthermore, several open issues are identified and possible solutions are proposed.