Situation management has traditionally been based on iterative planning activities that call for a high level of coordination between multiple stakeholders: first responders, citizens, volunteers, subject matter experts, scientists, technicians and managers with different yet important responsibilities. In a crisis event existing systems and communications infrastructures may not provide necessary information in a timely fashion due to damage, incompatible media, geographically limited coverage, fragmented technology or social and policy issues. The effective coordination of multiple response units/resources is stymied by incompatible communication technologies and social/policy incongruences. Crisis events are characterized by initial and ongoing uncertainty with regard to scale, location, direction and magnitude. More and better information sharing and cooperation is needed. The Intelligent Deployable Augmented Wireless Gateway (iDAWG) technology creates direct communication networks between remote coordinators, local response teams, volunteers and others on location by using or replacing existing communication or network infrastructures. Remotely sensed information and communications can be shared in real time via iDAWG-enabled devices that can be configured on the fly using edgeware (a new class of software developed for the wireless grid) applications. Existing web, cellular and radio communications network devices are bridged to build dynamically scalable heterogeneous wireless grids. Technical, social, governance and policy issues are addressed to facilitate this paradigm change in emergency response.
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