30 years of ad hoc networking research: what about humanitarian and disaster relief solutions? what are we still missing?

Abstract

In this invited talk, we will start by surveying the research works conducted during the last 30 years on wireless networking technologies from ad hoc, mesh to delay-tolerant opportunistic networks. We present how these networking technology may be applied to uphold communications in the event of a disaster where the communication infrastructure can be wiped-out (earthquakes, floods), overloaded (surge of traffic and flash crowds) or not existing in the first place (developing countries). We summarize the advantages and disadvantages of each unique approach, how they can be combined together (and with legacy systems), and focus on recent advances in the field. In a second part we will present, Twimight, our Twitter application relying on opportunistic communications to spread tweets and sensor data in an epidemic fashion. Twimight is an open source Twitter client for Android phones featured with a "disaster mode", which users enable upon losing connectivity. In the disaster mode, tweets are not sent to the online Twitter servers but stored on the phone, carried around as people move, and forwarded opportunistically via Bluetooth or WiFi Direct when in proximity with other smartphones. We will demonstrate how opportunistic technologies such as Twimight can be of great value right after a disaster by enabling the self-organization of victims and a better coordination with first rescue organizations. Eventually, we will conclude with the main challenges still to overcome and provide directions for future research in this emerging field from protocol and system design to security and data privacy. We will stress the need for cross-disciplinary approaches to better understand the psychology of distressed victims and their interaction with innovative communication technologies.