A Wireless Sensor, AdHoc and Delay Tolerant Network System for Disaster Response

This paper presents AnonymousNet (AnonNet), a system for emergency response in large scale disaster areas, e.g., earthquake and tsunami in Japan (2011) and earthquake in Haiti (2010). Despite the attention the “emergency response” application area has received, we still lack data at the high spatial and temporal resolution needed to save lives, and to support disaster recovery efforts. Disaster victims are rescued after days, if not weeks; victims’ physiological information is not delivered reliably on time; good coordination among responders is lacking, or it is based on archaic methods (pencil, paper, paint on walls); the delay in receiving vast amounts of information is bounded by the time used to physically transport tapes or hard drives; and no sensing/communication system built and deployed lasts more than a few days. AnonNet, designed in collaboration with US&R responders, is a first step to address these challenges. It is designed to aid in identifying victims under collapsed buildings, deliver victims’ physiological information on time, deliver high volumes of field data at high throughput and in an energy efficient manner, and integrates new social networking paradigms. AnonNet is a large academic effort, proposing open systems, instead of proprietary solutions. AnonNet and its subsystems are evaluated in real deployments and simulations.