DUMBONET: a multimedia communication system for collaborative emergency response operations in disaster-affected areas

This article describes an emergency communication network platform based on a hybrid combination of Mobile Ad Hoc Networking (MANET) and a satellite IP network operating with conventional terrestrial internet. It is designed for collaborative simultaneous emergency response operations deployed in a number of disaster-affected areas. The architecture of the network, called DUMBONET, and our emergency response applications are described. Experience from a real-life experimental test-bed is discussed. Our implementation involves multidisciplinary research areas such as MANET routing, peer-to-peer computing, sensor networks and face recognition. The article also identifies potential research challenges that we intend to investigate to further enhance the capabilities of our system.