A hybrid communication approach for disaster recovery system

Abstract

In this paper, we proposed a hybrid communication approach for disaster recovery system. Playing an important role in rescuing victims, the communication system in the disaster area is usually destroyed. The mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) can replace the original system. MANET can be deployed in the form of peer-to-peer (P2P) approach or infrastructure-based (IB) approach. However, both approaches still have limited flexibility and reliability. Our hybrid approach overcomes the limitations by combining advantages of P2P approach and those of IB approach. The hybrid approach allows victims to directly communicate to rescuers in the disaster area. Since victims need immediate helps from rescuers, appropriate destinations must be selected. Our design of hybrid approach allows victims to quickly send messages to the nearest rescuers without compromising the traffic to a base station. The experiment shows that our hybrid approach provides more than 98% of packet delivery ratio to rescuers.