Ubiquitous robust communications for emergency response using multi-operator heterogeneous networks

Fragkiadakis, Askoxylakis, Tragos, Verikoukis

Description

A number of disasters in various places of the planet have caused an extensive loss of lives, severe damages to properties and the environment, as well as a tremendous shock to the survivors. For relief and mitigation operations, emergency responders are immediately dispatched to the disaster areas. Ubiquitous and robust communications during the emergency response operations are of paramount importance. Nevertheless, various reports have highlighted that after many devastating events, the current technologies used, failed to support the mission critical communications, resulting in further loss of lives. Inefficiencies of the current communications used for emergency response include lack of technology inter-operability between different jurisdictions, and high vulnerability due to their centralized infrastructure. In this article, we propose a flexible network architecture that provides a common networking platform for heterogeneous multi-operator networks, for interoperation in case of emergencies. A wireless mesh network is the main part of the proposed architecture and this provides a back-up network in case of emergencies. We first describe the shortcomings and limitations of the current technologies, and then we address issues related to the applications and functionalities a future emergency response network should support. Furthermore, we describe the necessary requirements for a flexible, secure, robust, and QoS-aware emergency response multi-operator architecture, and then we suggest several schemes that can be adopted by our proposed architecture to meet those requirements. In addition, we suggest several methods for the re-tasking of communication means owned by independent individuals to provide support during emergencies. In order to investigate the feasibility of multimedia transmission over a wireless mesh network, we measured the performance of a video streaming application in a real wireless metropolitan multi-radio mesh network, showing that the mesh network can meet the requirements for high quality video transmissions.

Sujets

• Wireless mesh network
• Public safety
• Emergency service
• Interoperability
• Security
• 3G
• Tetra
• WiMAX
• Wi-Fi

Informations

• Publié par: biomed
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 6
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Fragkiadakiset al.EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking2011,2011:13 http://jwcn.eurasipjournals.com/content/2011/1/13

R E S E A R C H

Ubiquitous robust communications for emergency response using multioperator heterogeneous networks 1* 1 1 2 Alexandros G Fragkiadakis , Ioannis G Askoxylakis , Elias Z Tragos and Christos V Verikoukis

Open Access

Abstract A number of disasters in various places of the planet have caused an extensive loss of lives, severe damages to properties and the environment, as well as a tremendous shock to the survivors. For relief and mitigation operations, emergency responders are immediately dispatched to the disaster areas. Ubiquitous and robust communications during the emergency response operations are of paramount importance. Nevertheless, various reports have highlighted that after many devastating events, the current technologies used, failed to support the mission critical communications, resulting in further loss of lives. Inefficiencies of the current communications used for emergency response include lack of technology interoperability between different jurisdictions, and high vulnerability due to their centralized infrastructure. In this article, we propose a flexible network architecture that provides a common networking platform for heterogeneous multioperator networks, for interoperation in case of emergencies. A wireless mesh network is the main part of the proposed architecture and this provides a backup network in case of emergencies. We first describe the shortcomings and limitations of the current technologies, and then we address issues related to the applications and functionalities a future emergency response network should support. Furthermore, we describe the necessary requirements for a flexible, secure, robust, and QoSaware emergency response multioperator architecture, and then we suggest several schemes that can be adopted by our proposed architecture to meet those requirements. In addition, we suggest several methods for the retasking of communication means owned by independent individuals to provide support during emergencies. In order to investigate the feasibility of multimedia transmission over a wireless mesh network, we measured the performance of a video streaming application in a real wireless metropolitan multiradio mesh network, showing that the mesh network can meet the requirements for high quality video transmissions. Keywords:Wireless mesh networks, Public safety, Emergency response, Interoperability, Retasking, Security, Ubi quitous environments, Heterogeneous networks, 3G, TETRA, WiMAX, WiFi

Introduction Disasters in various places of the planet have caused an extensive loss of lives, severe damages in properties and a tremendous shock to the survivors and their relatives. Several other serious outcomes are observed after a dis aster, like social effects as looting, economic pressures as loss of tourism industry, etc [1]. Natural disasters like the Hurricane Katrina in US, the tsunami in Asia, or manmade attacks like the 9/11 terrorist attack in New

* Correspondence: [e-mail] 1 Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research and TechnologyHellas (FORTH), P.O. Box 1385, 711 10 Heraklion, Crete, Greece Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

York in 2001, and the London bombings in 2005, have shown that the use of communications and network connectivity is of vital importance for saving lives. Immediately after an emergency incident, first respon ders (e.g., police, fire fighters, medical personnel, etc.) are sent to the disaster area for mitigation and relief operations. As the first minutes (or hours) are vital to save human lives, robust ubiquitous communications should be available to first responders. However, experi ence has shown that during rescue operations after devastating events, several technology inefficiencies have made communication between the rescuers problematic. For example, during the 9/11 attacks, police issued

© 2011 Fragkiadakis et al; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.