Energy Efficient Routing Algorithms for Acquiring Information from Smart Badges

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 have drawn attention to the use of wireless technology in order to locate survivors of structural collapse. We propose to construct an ad hoc network of wireless smart badges in order to acquire information from trapped survivors. We investigate the energy efficient routing problem that arises in such a network and show that since smart badges have very limited power sources and very low data rates, which may be inadequate in an emergency situation, the solution of the routing problem requires new protocols. The problem is formulated as an anycast routing problem in which the objective is to maximize the time until the first battery drains-out. Then, we present two methodologies that can be used in order to develop distributed protocols for obtaining the optimal solution of the problem. Keywords—energy efficient routing, energy conserving routing, disaster recovery network, smart badge