An Emergency Response System: Construction, Validation, and Experiments for Disaster Management in a Vehicular...

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Disaster Management

Background:

• Natural disasters cause loss of life and hinder sustainable development.
• Effective communication and rapid response are critical challenges during emergencies.
• Infrastructure damage in post-disaster scenarios necessitates resilient communication solutions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and validate an effective communication method for disaster rescue operations.
• To develop an application and experimental testbed for relaying crucial information in vehicular environments.
• To enhance coordination and streamline rescue efforts through timely information dissemination.

Main Methods:

• Development of a vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) application.
• Deployment of an experimental testbed with vehicles equipped with Raspberry Pi and GPS modules.
• Multi-hop transmission of emergency messages with urgency codes to a central control room.

Main Results:

• Successful validation of an effective information relay system for disaster scenarios.
• Demonstration of a functional testbed capable of designing and validating algorithms.
• Real-time visualization of rescue operations through an interpretable graphical interface.

Conclusions:

• VANETs offer a viable infrastructure-less solution for post-disaster communication.
• The developed system effectively relays critical information for improved rescue operations.
• The experimental testbed provides a platform for validating communication algorithms in vehicular environments.