Improving Communication for Mobile Devices in Disaster Response

摘要

During disaster response, networks can become overloaded and are susceptible to complete failure in the disaster area. This disables mobile communication, hindering response efforts from mobile users. Mobile users make use of various heterogeneous devices and require infrastructure to facilitate the communication of distributed information. Communication flow among mobile users is disorganized as it is either too strong and hierarchical or too flexible and dynamic. We have designed ubiquitous mobile infrastructures to match the response environment's communication flows and telecommunications, and produced a ubiquitous mobile communication system (ubimobcom). The design standardizes the information exchanges between mobile users. In this paper, we show that ubimobcom makes cooperation and coordination among mobile users possible at the disaster. Using ubimobcom, mobile users can be coordinated and can cooperate in outdoor areas, besides; they can continue connected with their disaster operation center. We describe the ubimobcom system to illustrate the use of communication by mobile users to disasters that may range from minor to catastrophic.