A hybrid wireless network enhanced with multihopping for emergency communications

This paper proposes a hybrid wireless network scheme enhanced with ad hoc networking for disaster damage assessment and emergency communications. The network aims to maintain the connection between a base station (BS) and nodes by way of multihopping. In the event that a direct link between BS and a node is disconnected, the node switches modes from cellular to ad hoc in order to access BS via neighboring nodes. A routing protocol proposed in this paper is capable of building a route using unicast-based route discovery process without route request flooding. A proposed MAC protocol satisfies the requirement of maintaining accessibility and a short delay even in emergency circumstances. We discuss an analytical model based on a Markov process. Experimental results are shown regarding reachability, throughput and delay.