Multi-Hop Relays for LTE Public Safety Network

Reliable and efficient communication is crucial to safety, as well as in situations involving disasters or emergencies. These situations make it particularly important that communication systems are fully operational. Given the shortcomings of public safety networks in cases of disaster, the 3GPP long term evolution (LTE) network has received a great deal of attention as a broadband access alternative for emergency situations. In this paper, we present the results of a performance evaluation using a multi-hop relay network (MRN) in the context of emergency and public safety communications. To overcome the current limitations of LTE networks and meet all public safety requirements, we propose an LTE-MRN interworking scheme that can achieve significantly better performance than the existing professional mobile radio systems, such as TETRA, APCO25, and DMR, in terms of throughput, packet loss rate, and delay.