CSR: Small: Self-sustainable Solar-powered Emergency Mesh Design

University Of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR

Investigators

Abstract

Natural emergency and disaster scenarios are unfortunate occurrences with far reaching after effects. In addition to human casualties, natural calamities can destroy the power grid, telephone networks, and mobile phone towers. The result being, there is no alternative for disseminating critical updates such as disease and safety alerts, locations, and directions to survivors. The above problem is an outcome of the lack of network systems that are designed to survive and serve after natural disasters. In order to remedy this problem, this project is designing, implementing, and deploying a solar powered self-sustainable emergency mesh to provide critical communication infrastructure to survivors and rescue personnel. This work employs a mesh architecture that is energy-efficient and self-sustainable. It relies on renewable energy sources such as solar to provide near-perpetual lifetime to mesh nodes while serving critical updates to survivors. Since renewable energy scavenging is notoriously unpredictable, this project uses a clean-slate low power hardware and software systems design for the nodes. Additionally, in the event of node failures due to variability inherent in renewable energy scavenging and extreme environmental conditions during the aftermath of a natural calamity, the mesh automatically redistributes the data on the failed nodes to maintain sufficient redundancy. Finally, the mesh design uses common wireless technology such as Wi-Fi and light weight web-based services for compatibility with off-the-shelf laptops, mobile phones, and PDAs carried by disaster survivors. The culminating goal of this project is to save human lives. With the mesh infrastructure in place, human casualties during post-disaster times can be minimized. Additionally, during non-emergency scenarios, the system can be used to disseminate \police alerts" and \disease alerts" (e.g. swine-flu) that keep individuals well informed and cautious. In addition to a broad societal impact, this project, through educational courses provides hands-on experience to undergraduates and graduates in building mobile, embedded, and geospatial systems.