Networking smartphones for disaster recovery

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate how to network smart-phones for providing communications in disaster recovery. By bridging the gaps among different kinds of wireless networks, we have designed and implemented a system called TeamPhone, which provides smartphones the capabilities of communications in disaster recovery. Specifically, TeamPhone consists of two components: a messaging system and a self-rescue system. The messaging system integrates cellular networking, ad-hoc networking and opportunistic networking seamlessly, and enables communications among rescue workers. The self-rescue system energy-efficiently groups the smartphones of trapped survivor and sends out emergency messages so as to assist rescue operations. We have implemented TeamPhone as a prototype application on the Android platform and deployed it on off-the-shelf smartphones. Experiment results show that TeamPhone can properly fulfill communication requirements and greatly facilitate rescue operations in disaster recovery.