Post-Disaster Situation Analysis and Resource Management using Delay-Tolerant Peer-to-Peer Wireless Networks

A Project Proposal

A. Work done at IIM Calcutta

1. Project Name: A Secure Decentralized Disaster Management Information Network using Rapidly Deployable Wireless and Mobile Computing Technologies

2. Organisation: Jadavpur University, Calcutta and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

3. Outlay: Rs. 105.28 lakh (JU outlay: Rs. 56.94 lakhs, IIMC outlay: Rs. 48.34 lakhs)

4. Duration: Three Yrs. (April, 2005-March 2008).

5. Objective: In order to cope with disasters in a fast and highly coordinated manner, the optimal provision of information concerning the situation is an essential pre-requisite. Police, Fire Departments, Public Health, Civil Defense and other organizations have to react not only efficiently and individually, but also in a coordinated manner. This results in the need for both Intra and Inter Organization coordination at several stages. Since coordination requires current information, and such information must be communicated in real-time, the need arises for an Integrated Communication and Information System for Disaster Management that provides efficient, reliable, secure exchange and processing of relevant information. The objective of this project is to investigate computer-mediated disaster communication system using rapidly deployable mobile computing and wireless communication technology and to realize a prototype of a Secure Decentralized Disaster Management System and Information Network.

6. User: Government Departments and NGOs working for disaster management.

7. Status: An Information Network Architecture for disaster management has been proposed and tested. Here, the volunteers / front-line workers carry PDAs, forming an ad hoc network cluster among them. Such multiple clusters are connected via Access Network consisting of the WiFi AP Mesh. This, in turn, is connected to Back-haul Network consisting of WiFi, WiMax, SATCOM, GSM/CDMA in order to get an access to the Existing Backbone consisting of SWAN, Wired Internet. Several applications are tested including text and voice messaging, a distributed resource-request handling system for efficient resource management during disaster recovery, a GPS-based Tracking System to track the volunteers during disaster and so on.

Outcome of the Work done at IIMC on Disaster Management by Prof Somprakash Bandyopadhyay

PhD Awarded
           
    1. M Scalem has been awarded "Fellow of IIMC" for his thesis entiled “Disaster Management: A Model Approach to an integrated Real-Time Computer Mediated Information Network System (D2MINIS) through wireless and Mobile Networking as Enabling Technologies”.

Attendance of Seminars and Training Activities

1. Presentation in WIDENS (Wireless Deployable Networks) Workshop, June 23rd 2005, IST Mobile Summit, Dresden, Germany (http://www.widens.org/) [WIDENS is a co-operative project involving European industries and universities. The project is supported by the European Commission under the IST Framework Programme 6. The overall objective of the WIDENS project is to design, prototype and validate a high data-rate, rapidly deployable and scalable wireless ad-hoc communication system for future public safety, emergency and disaster applications.]

2. Parama Bhaumik , M. Scalem, Siuli Roy, Somprakash Bandyopadhyay, "Content-based Query Support in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks using Information-Fading and Narrow-Casting for Efficient Resource Handling in Disaster Management" , Presented in IST Mobile and Wireless Communications Summit, Dresden, Germany, 19-23 June 2005.

A Secure Decentralized Disaster Management Information Network using Rapidly Deployable Wireless and Mobile Computing Technologies

B. Work done at NIT Durgapur

1. Simulation Result: We have proposed an adhoc three layer hybrid architecture for post disaster scenario when it has to cater to a wide area. In lower layer we have used DTN nodes, for middle layer we propose data MULEs and at upper layer some non line of sight WiFi towers are placed. We have simulated this hybrid three layer architecture using three stage time variant graph as shown in Figure 3 using one simulator for true realization of real life post-disaster scenario. Initially we have considered a graph with least edge connectivity, representing the precarious situation immediately after the disaster. The graph gets better gradually in the following two stages with time variation. We have investigated that as the rescue operation by disaster management team goes on, the pathways between the activity points will be restored, providing improved performance against less time consumption than previous stages keeping the already hired resources almost constant. Our simulation result shows that almost 95% messages also got delivered within the time bound. In Figure.4 the delivery probability & latency for 3 stages are shown against the time bound of 210, 200 and 150 respectively. Our simulation result shows that almost 100% emergency messages also got delivered within the time bound.

Figure 3: 1st   and 3rd stage Time Variant  Graph

Figure 4: Delivery Probability & Latency Vs Stage graph

2. Test Bed Experimental Result:  One of our Team member, Sujoy Saha from NIT Durgapur has experience as research fellow in the project titled as    “Secured Decentralized Disaster Management Information Network using Rapidly Deployable Wireless Networking and Mobile Computing Technologies” funded by Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Information Technology, Govt. of India conducted by Centre for Distributed Computing, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Jadavpur University. In this project one prototype model for post disaster management in Sundarban coastal area, West Bengal was developed. The communication was setup among threeislandnear gosaba using 802.11 enabled with optilink devices configured in point to multipoint bridge with 15dbi antenna which was found to be able to cover near about 7 to 8 km range in line of sight. Using this link voice communication was established with NGOs as shown in figure 1. The test of  WiMax devices was made as shown in fig.2 in Kolkata near jadavpur university, West Bengal & they achieved 3 to 4 km range of communication in this congested city area. Their test bed experimental result is shown in Table 1 & Table 2.Their team also designed & developed crisis management software for PDA devices and developed fault tolerant system for 802.11 networks. Our team member Sujoy Saha has great expertise of working at the ground level of real life implementation with WiFi & WiMax devices while working the above discussed project work.

Figure 1: Voice & Data Communication in Sundarban near Gosaba Block

Figure 2: Voice communication using WiMax & WiFi devices in Jadavpur University

Table 1: Using Optilink  Access Point with 15 dbi Antenna

Table 2: Using D-Link AP with 8 dbi Antenna

As a disaster communication system generally involves the use heterogeneous technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, Sat phone, Wired LAN etc. designing such a network involves the challenge of integrating such technologies and protocols. Specifically, interoperability issues dealing with different data rates, signal quality and packet formats need to be handled seamlessly. Our survey reveals that this issue still needs significant attention. Among several hybrid architectures proposed for disaster communication it has been observed mostly adhoc network protocols has been used in the lowest layer. However noting the problems of intermittent connectivity and sparseness of device density, Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) is often chosen as a better technological option. DTN is an attempt to extend the reach of traditional networking methods where nodes are intermittently connected and an end-to-end path from source to destination does not exist all the time. In these kinds of networks traditional unicast, multicast Ad-Hoc routing protocols,security techniques are all inapplicable for DTN.From DTN transport standpoint, traditional DTN routing protocols [Link 09], [Hui 08], [Lindgren 04] are unable to capture requirements of PDM. Hence designing services using group-aware, energy-aware routing protocols optimizing some multi-dimensional routing utility vectors are highly desired but currently unavailable. Although multicasting in DTN in general has received significant attention in recent years [Patra 11], [Santiago 09], [Ye 09], [Zhao 05], [Spyropoulos 05], [Lee 08], in the context of post disaster situation, protocols need to be designed leveraging inter-group node meeting patterns to implement both the inter-service-group as well as intra-service-group communication routing.

C. Work done at HIT Kolkata

Siuli Roy has worked in a project entitled “A Secure Decentralized Disaster Management Information Network using Rapidly Deployable Wireless and Mobile Computing Technologies” for three years (2005 –2008).  This was a joint project of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta in collaboration with Jadavpur University (JU) and the project was funded by Department of Information Technology Govt. of India.
The objective of this project was to investigate computer-mediated disaster communication system using rapidly deployable mobile computing and wireless communication technology and to realize a prototype of a Secure Decentralized Disaster Management System and Information Network.

In order to cope with disasters in a fast and highly coordinated manner, the optimal provision of information concerning the situation is an essential pre-requisite. Police, Fire Departments, Public Health, Civil Defense and other organizations have to react not only efficiently and individually, but also in a coordinated manner. This results in the need for both Intra and Inter Organization coordination at several stages. Since coordination requires current information, and such information must be communicated in real-time, the need arises for an Integrated Communication and Information System for Disaster Management that provides efficient, reliable, secure exchange and processing of relevant information.

An Information Network Architecture (see the figure below) for disaster management was proposed and tested where the volunteers/front-line workers carry PDAs, forming an ad hoc network cluster among them. Such multiple clusters are connected via Access Network consisting of the WiFi AP Mesh. This, in turn, is connected to Back-haul Network consisting of WiFi, WiMax, GSM/CDMA in order to get an access to the Existing Backbone consisting of SWAN, Wired Internet. Several applications are tested including text and voice messaging, a GPS-based Tracking System to track the volunteers during disaster etc.