Ramble: Opportunistic Crowdsourcing of User-Generated Data using Mobile Edge Clouds

We present RAMBLE11ramble: (verb) wander about; travel aimlessly. (source: Thesaurus.com), a framework for georeferenced content-sharing in environments that have limited infrastructural communications, as is the case for rescue operations in the aftermath of natural disasters. Ramble makes use of mobile edge-clouds, networks formed by mobile devices in close proximity, and lightweight cloudlets that serve a small geographical area. Using an Android app, users ramble whilst generating geo-referenced content (e.g., text messages, sensor readings, photos, or videos), and disseminate that content opportunistically to nearby devices, cloudlets, or even cloud servers, as allowed by intermittent wireless connections. Each RAMBLE-enabled device can both produce information; consume information for which it expresses interest to neighboors, and; serve as an opportunistic cache for other devices. We describe the architecture of the framework and a case-study application scenario we designed to evaluate its behavior and performance. The results obtained reinforce our view that kits of RAMBLE-enabled mobile devices and modest cloudlets can constitute lightweight and flexible untethered intelligence gathering platforms for first responders in the aftermath of natural disasters, paving the way for the deployment of humanitary assistance and technical staff at large.