Dependable Emergency-response Networking Based on Retaskable Network Infrastructures

Data networking can aid disaster recovery efforts by allowing victims to contact rescuers, rescuers to communicate among themselves, and concerned friends and relatives to contact victims. Unfortunately, conventional data networks themselves are often destroyed by disasters, currently rendering these services unavailable. My thesis is that heterogeneous robust subnetworks that manage to survive a disaster can be enhanced and dynamically retasked to form an Emergency-Response Network (ERN) using techniques frommobile ad-hoc networks. In this dissertation, we discuss the challenges that arise in such applications, with particular attention being paid to security challenges. We describe specific solutions to the challenges of emergency detection, platform support, and topology planning and assessment, relying on the philosophy espoused by the pioneers of the Internet, that protocols and related mechanisms should be as simple as possible, to make it easy to develop correct and interoperable implementations and resist the accumulation of gold-plated requirements that restrict the applicability of the mechanisms. Then, we demonstrate several emergency-response applications running on a prototype ERN based on ZigBee and UDP/IP, and explain how such ERN applications could be deployed on realistic networks.