Information-Centric Internet-of-Robotic Things-Based Postdisaster Real-Time Data Collection and Routing: Challenges, Technology, and Solutions

According to the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), 7,348 disaster events have occurred worldwide over the past two decades, resulting in approximately 1.23 million fatalities and affecting over 4 billion people. These disasters frequently destroy critical communication infrastructure, including internet and cellular networks, leaving victims isolated from rescue services during the most critical post-disaster hours. This communication breakdown creates a fundamental operational challenge: how to establish rapid, reliable access to comprehensive situational data in disaster zones. To address this challenge, we propose integrating the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) with an information-centric Local Cloud architecture (called IRC). This article explains the motivation for leveraging Information-Centric Networking (ICN) to implement IRC (called ICN-IRC), discusses the challenges ICN-IRC faces in IRC construction and routing, and proposes potential solutions.