Elsevier

Integration

Volume 58, June 2017, Pages 274-285
Integration

A framework for post-disaster communication using wireless ad hoc networks

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vlsi.2016.11.011Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We propose a framework for post-disaster communication using wireless ad hoc network.

  • The framework includes, a multi-channel MAC protocol to achieve higher throughput, and minimize the impact of hidden and exposed terminals.

  • An energy efficient node-disjoint multi-path routing to enhance network lifetime.

  • Distributed topology control mechanism to reduce the maximum transmission power at node level.

Abstract

Disaster management system requires timely delivery of large volumes of accurate messages so that an appropriate decision can be made to minimize the severity. When a disaster strikes, most of the infrastructure for communication gets uprooted. As a result, communication gets hampered. A well designed Internet of things (IoT) can play a significant role in the post-disaster scenario to minimize the losses, and save the precious lives of animals and human beings. In this paper, we have proposed a framework for post-disaster communication using wireless ad hoc networks. The framework includes: (i) a multi-channel MAC protocol to improve the network throughput, (ii) an energy aware multi-path routing to overcome the higher energy depletion rate at nodes associated with single shortest path routing, and (iii) a distributed topology aware scheme to minimize the transmission power. Above proposals, taken together intend to increase the network throughput, reduce the end-to-end delay, and enhance the network lifetime of an ad hoc network deployed for disaster response. A multi-channel MAC protocol permits the transmission from hidden and exposed nodes without interfering with the on-going transmission. We have compared the proposed framework with an existing scheme called Distressnet [1]. Simulation results show that the proposed framework achieves higher throughput, lower end-to-end delay, and an increased network longevity.

Introduction

The hurricane Sandy in 2012, tsunami in 2011, terrorist attack on World Trade Center in 2001 have drawn lots of attention to improve the rescue operation following a disaster. In the last few years, there have been significant improvements in the disaster management front, yet there exists enough scope for further improvement. The challenges in disaster management are:

  • (i)

    Disaster cannot be predicted and its severity cannot be measured in advance.

  • (ii)

    It strikes suddenly, and uproots the entire communication system. Without a reliable communication system it is difficult to carry out the rescue operation.

  • (iii)

    Use of radio communication is severely affected due to increase in network traffic. Network deployed at the disaster site experience congestion due to massive exchange of voice and/or message. Entire region suffers from degraded communication which affects the rescue operation. Message delivery gets delayed due to congestion.

In many critical environments, wireless ad hoc networks represent key technologies providing several Internet of things (IoT) applications and services to users. As the infrastructure based network gets uprooted, wireless ad hoc networks can play a significant role in disaster mitigation [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. It can be quickly deployed at the disaster affected site, and does not need any fixed networking infrastructure.

Wireless ad hoc networks designed for disaster mitigation must provide robust ubiquitous communication, sufficient enough to support the geographical coverage and mobility requirement of the people involved in rescue operation. However, the use of wireless ad hoc networks for disaster management faces the following challenges:

  • (i)

    Energy constraint: Nodes in wireless ad hoc networks have limited battery capacity, which must be judiciously used to increase the network lifetime. In a disaster scenario, networks should remain active as long as possible. To increase the network lifetime, attempt should be made to minimize the power consumption at nodes.

  • (ii)

    Network congestion: Traffic is likely to increase by many folds after the disaster. As a result, network gets congested, and collision takes place. Retransmission due to collision further aggravates the congestion. This decreases the network throughput and unnecessarily depletes energy at the node. For achieving higher throughput, congestion in the network has to be minimized.

  • (iii)

    End-to-end delay: Due to network congestion the end-to-end delay increases. For initiating prompt action, message should be timely delivered.

To address the above challenges, we propose a framework for disaster response using wireless ad hoc network. The main feature of the framework includes:

  • (i)

    a multi-channel MAC protocol to achieve higher throughput, and minimize the impact of hidden and exposed terminals,

  • (ii)

    an energy efficient node-disjoint multi-path routing to enhance network lifetime, and

  • (iii)

    distributed topology control mechanism to reduce the maximum transmission power at node level.

Rest of the paper is organized as follows: related work is discussed in Section 2. Proposed framework is presented in Section 3. Simulation results are discussed in Section 4 and few conclusions are drawn in Section 5.

Section snippets

Related work

Emergency response system uses various wireless technology such as cellular network, Wi-Fi, LR-WPANs (IEEE 802.15.4) [7], [8], etc. Most of these technology operate in a client–server mode, and are fully dependent on the service provider such as base station and access points. Moreover, they are prone to congestion, and failure of base station or access point degrades the system performance. To overcome the above limitations, a peer-to-peer architecture using wireless ad hoc network is adopted

Proposed work

When a disaster strikes, the number of persons seeking disaster information grows significantly. This may lead to congestion in the network, as a result end-to-end delay increases and degrades the network throughput drastically. Majority of the routing protocols selects the minimum-hop path between the source–destination pair in routing traffic. Reuse of the same path over and over again will lead to quicker depletion of battery power at the nodes on the path. Moreover, shortest path routing

Performance evaluation

In this section, we evaluate the performance of the proposed disaster management framework using QualNet 4.5 simulator [32]. Parameters considered for the simulation is mentioned in Table 7.

We evaluate the performance of the proposed framework varying the traffic and node mobility. The following metrics are considered for evaluation: Throughput, End-to-end delay, Network lifetime, and Energy consumption.

(A) Throughput: We plot the throughput vs. CBR connection, and pause time in Fig. 7, Fig. 8

Conclusion

In this paper, we proposed a framework for post-disaster communication using wireless ad hoc network. The proposed framework attempts to: (i) maximize network throughput, (ii) minimize the average end-to-end delay, and (iii) improve the network lifetime. The available channels are split into control and data channel. There is one dedicated control channel. Each node is equipped with dual transceiver, one for control and the other for data. A reservation mechanism is employed for data

Niranjan Kumar Ray received his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from National Institute of Technology Rourkela in 2014. He did his Masters in Computer Science and engineering from Utkal University Bhubaneswar in 2007. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Silicon Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar. His area of interest includes mobile ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, Internet of Things (IoT) and software defined network. He

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    Niranjan Kumar Ray received his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from National Institute of Technology Rourkela in 2014. He did his Masters in Computer Science and engineering from Utkal University Bhubaneswar in 2007. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Silicon Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar. His area of interest includes mobile ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, Internet of Things (IoT) and software defined network. He was the publication chair of International Conference on Information Technology (ICIT-2016). He is listed in Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, 12th Edition (2016) and Who’s Who in World, 32nd Edition (2015). He is a member of IEEE.

    Ashok Kumar Turuk received his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from IIT Kharagpur in 2005. He did his Bachelors and Masters in Computer Science and engineering from National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (formerly REC Rourkela) in 1992 and 2000, respectively. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. His research interest includes wireless ad hoc, sensor and optical networks, Cloud computing and Internet of Things(IoT). He was the principal investigator (PI) of many projects funded by government agency like DIT, DST, etc. He was the programme chair of International Conference on Communication Computing and Security (ICCCS-2011). He is a member of IEEE Computer Society, Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE), Computer Society of India (CSI), and Odisha Bigyan Academy.

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