Information acquisition using intelligent sensor nodes and an autonomous blimp

In case of disasters such as a big earthquake in the urban city, it is one of the most important problems to acquire information of the disaster environment, victimspsila position and status. Although, at present, rescue corps and dogs strive to find the victims everywhere in the disaster area, it takes too long time. To address this problem, a small sized wireless ubiquitous sensor node called ldquoRescue Communicatorrdquo is developed. Rescue Communicator can call to the missing victims possibly trapped under rubble and record their voices if any so as to efficiently find them immediately after the disaster. Installed indoors prior to the attack of a disaster or placed in the disaster-affected site after the attack, the devices under development are capable of forming an ad-hoc network throughout the environment around the site. This works in parallel at the disaster site (ubiquitously searching) and supports that rescue corps search for the victim, effectively. This paper will discuss about outdoor basic operation experiment of Rescue Communicators which cooperate with blimp.