Assets protection in crisis management operations using body area sensor networks

Natural disasters always result in large scale financial, environmental and human asset losses. In these crises there is the possibility of damage to significant parts of the communication systems of cities and/or countries. Consequently critical information and communication systems might become unavailable. In such cases an emergency ad-hoc communication network could be established between different emergency service organisations (police, fire services, medical support etc.) to share critical information in order to control the situation. During crisis management operational activities, emergency service personnel (police, paramedic or fire service personnel) and their equipment are at high risk of damage from physical circumstances and events. Any harm to emergency service personnel or their equipment could result in communication link failures, loss of sensitive data and many other threats which could result in various critical issues, such as data unavailability, information delay and internal and external attacks. The safety of emergency service personnel and their communication devices is critically important to ensure that the services remain fully operational. In this paper we propose an architecture using a body area sensor network to protect assets (emergency service personnel, equipment and data inside the network) from damage and attacks, and to take appropriate actions to mitigate risks.