WIISARD: a measurement study of network properties and protocol reliability during an emergency response

  • Authors:

  • Octav Chipara;William G. Griswold;Anders N. Plymoth;Ricky Huang;Fang Liu;Per Johansson;Ramesh Rao;Theodore Chan;Colleen Buono

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA;University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA;University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA;University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA;University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA;University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA;University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA;University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA;University of California San Diego, San Diego, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Mobile systems, applications, and services
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

This paper describes the design, deployment, and empirical evaluation of WIISARD - a novel emergency response system that provides reliable communication in dynamic wireless environments without extensive communication infrastructure. The main contribution of this paper is an in-depth empirical study of network properties that emerge during a drill in which WIISARD is deployed with minimal infrastructure support. The drill involves 19 first responders and 41 victims. The properties of links established among first responders vary between phases of the drill and depend upon the responder's role in the drill. The rescue phase - in which responders are highly mobile as they triage victims - poses significant challenges to reliable communication. During this phase, the contacts between responders are short-lived; however, they are reestablished within minutes. Once a contact between responders is established, the quality of the link between those responders is usually high. The connectivity graph observed during the rescue phase is usually connected and has a small diameter although there are times when it has a large diameter or it is partitioned. While mobility increases network dynamics, we also observe that the mobility patterns characteristic of the emergency response workflow can be leveraged to disseminate data efficiently through data muling. WIISARD employs a gossip-based protocol and supports data dissemination through local communication and data muling to achieve 98% reliability during the drill exercise. These results indicate the feasibility of providing reliable communication in emergency response with minimal infrastructure in spite of network dynamics.