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| Title | Robust Mobile Ad-hoc Space for Collaboration to Support Disaster Relief Efforts Involving Critical Physical Infrastructure |
| Authors | Roberto Aldunate, Sergio Ochoa, Feniosky Peña-Mora, Miguel Nussbaum V. |
| Publication date | 2006 |
| Abstract |
When an extreme event hits an urban area, the efficiency and effectiveness of the first response and the vulnerability of the civil infrastructure systems have a profound effect on disaster relief efforts. The redefinition of the civil engineers’ role and responsibilities along with an enhanced collaboration between disaster relief organizations will greatly improve first response efforts and the securing of affected infrastructures. In order to improve collaboration efforts, the currently utilized medium needs to be modified due to its low availability, the impossibility of storing, retrieving and transferring digital information, and because of its lack of support to implement information dissemination policies. This paper presents a reliable, transparent, and portable Mobile Ad-hoc Space for Collaboration (MASC) based on a short range wireless communication platform to address these limitations. MASC meets the requirements of the disaster setting, thus allowing for more effective collaboration among first responders, and supporting the redefined role for civil engineers as fourth responders. The system was designed around a robust data redundancy core, and tested through software simulations and by conducting a search and rescue exercise with civil engineers and firefighters. The simulation results highlight that the number of machines, the replication level, the size of the replication unit, and the wireless communication range are the key design elements of the system in order to achieve high availability. Moreover, the results suggests that it is possible to build a system exhibiting 98% of availability in square areas where the side length is about three times the wireless communication range of a traditional team of first responders. Furthermore, the search and rescue exercise allowed this research to confirm the availability simulation results and to demonstrate that the Mobile Ad-hoc Space for Collaboration is also portable among different devices, transparent to first responders, and able to adequately manage and disseminate information in disaster scenarios. These encouraging results allow this research effort to conclude that MASC is able to address these new challenges. |
| Downloaded | 650 times |
| Pages | 13-27 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Journal name | ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering |
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