Lifeline: Emergency Ad Hoc Network

TL;DR

Lifeline is an emergency ad hoc network system enabling mobile devices to communicate and locate victims during disasters when traditional infrastructure fails.

Contribution

Lifeline introduces an automatic, resilient ad hoc network system for emergency scenarios, including position estimation and recovery features.

Findings

Enables communication during infrastructure outages

Supports victim localization using network propagation

Recovers from partial network failures

Abstract

Lifeline is a group of systems designed for mobile phones and battery powered wireless routers for forming emergency Ad hoc networks. Devices installed with Lifeline program can automatically form Ad hoc networks when cellular signal is unavailable or disrupted during natural disasters. For instance, large scale earthquakes can cause extensive damages to land-based telecommunication infrastructures. In such circumstances, mobile phones installed with Lifeline program can be used to send emergency messages by the victims who are trapped under collapsed buildings. In addition, Lifeline also provides a function for the rescuers to estimate the positions of the victims based on network propagation techniques. Lifeline also has the ability to recover from partial crash of network and nodes lost.