Meshtastic Example in Emergency Communication

The potential damage, loss, and injury from natural events, timing and location of which are uncertain, can lead to unpredictable natural disasters, posing significant threats to humanity. As a result of these disasters, people lose their lives or are injured, and living spaces become unusable or inoperable for extended periods. Immediately after these natural disasters, it is very important for aid teams to maintain uninterrupted communication with each other and with crisis management centers established in the disaster area in order to deliver emergency medical and humanitarian aid to injured and in need. Existing communication systems can become unusable, either partially or completely due to the impact of a natural disaster, or even if undamaged, due to uncontrolled post-disaster communication traffic. These adverse conditions cause significant difficulties in communicating with emergency medical aid, search, and rescue teams. For this purpose, this study utilizes using LoRa radio transceivers communication nodes developed by a project called Meshtastic, which utilizes radio frequencies and does not utilize existing communication infrastructure. LoRa radio transceivers use the ISM band, which is used for Industrial, Scientific and Medical Devices and does not require any licensing in many countries, including ours. These handheld nodes can conduct encrypted or unencrypted written communication among themselves. Furthermore, the coordinates of the nodes can be tracked using GPS receivers, and surrounding nodes can be tracked as well. Furthermore, the modules’ built-in Wi-Fi hardware connects to the system’s internet infrastructure, enabling all handheld nodes in the network to communicate simultaneously, either individually or in their entirety. All terminals in the network can be tracked on a map via the Meshtastic application and communicated through the application. In this study, three nodes operating at 433 MHz and 868 MHz were created, enabling communication with each other from different locations via both radio frequency and the Meshtastic application. This study successfully tested Meshtastic, an alternative communication method that can be used in extraordinary situations such as natural disasters by communicating with Meshtastic nodes without relying on the existing communication infrastructure that is used in daily life. The main objective of this study was to successfully establish communication between nodes using the ISM band, without requiring any internet infrastructure or specific usage permits or licenses.