Communications Support for Disaster Recovery Operations using Hybrid Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

During times of calamity, such as an earthquake or tsunami, rescue and recovery efforts are usually hampered by communications failure as the incumbent communications infrastructure has most likely been damaged or destroyed during the disaster. An ad-hoc communications infrastructure, with support for multimedia traffic such as Voice over IP and video- streaming, must be quickly put in place to support the command, control and communication needs of the rescue and recovery operations. Such applications require relatively fast and robust communications links, and broadband wireless technologies appear to be a viable solution. This paper examines two hierarchical network solutions which allow the delivery of such mission-critical multimedia data between rescue teams and their headquarters over extremely long distances using a combination of wireless network technologies (namely, WiFi, WiMax and GEO Satellite) and multimedia software applications (in particular, Voice-over-IP) to meet the requirements of disaster rescue communication scenarios. The proposed system has been validated experimentally in the field as well as using simulations to demonstrate the scalability of the design.