TY - GEN

T1 - Design of a backup network for catastrophe scenarios

AU - Alves, S.

AU - Koldehofe, B.

AU - Miranda, H.

AU - Taiani, Francois

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - Communication networks play a fundamental role in the response to a massive catastrophe, like an earthquake or a large-scale terrorist attack to a major urban area. In such situations, command centres must be able to rely on a fully operational communication network, for example to learn about on-going situations and allocate and guide the rescue teams. Communication is bidirectional: once in the field, these teams will feed the command centre with a more accurate view of the situation, contributing to the efficient allocation of the resources. Failures in this network, even if localised to some of the regions affected by the catastrophe, can have costs both monetary and in human lives.In this position paper, we propose the creation of a redundant, best-effort, emergency communication network that could serve to mitigate localised failures using off-the-shelf widespread technology. We give an overview of an architecture for a backup network, highlight the possible advantage of such an architecture to disaster management and discuss challenges that need to be overcome in realising it.

AB - Communication networks play a fundamental role in the response to a massive catastrophe, like an earthquake or a large-scale terrorist attack to a major urban area. In such situations, command centres must be able to rely on a fully operational communication network, for example to learn about on-going situations and allocate and guide the rescue teams. Communication is bidirectional: once in the field, these teams will feed the command centre with a more accurate view of the situation, contributing to the efficient allocation of the resources. Failures in this network, even if localised to some of the regions affected by the catastrophe, can have costs both monetary and in human lives.In this position paper, we propose the creation of a redundant, best-effort, emergency communication network that could serve to mitigate localised failures using off-the-shelf widespread technology. We give an overview of an architecture for a backup network, highlight the possible advantage of such an architecture to disaster management and discuss challenges that need to be overcome in realising it.

KW - backup networks

KW - emergency communications

KW - resilience

U2 - 10.1145/1582379.1582512

DO - 10.1145/1582379.1582512

M3 - Conference contribution/Paper

SN - 978-1-60558-569-7

T3 - IWCMC'09

SP - 613

EP - 617

BT - IWCMC '09 Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing: Connecting the World Wirelessly

PB - ACM

CY - Leipzig, Germany

ER -