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System being prepared to support rescue teams in emergency situations(Balochistan Times (Pakistan) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) A rapidlydeployable wireless communication system is being developed to support rescue teams in achieving their goals more effectively in emergency situations. The proposal focuses on developing an autoconfiguring and selfhealing wireless network and designing software which would run over such a network to provide an efficient wireless communication system in emergency. National ICT Research and Development Fund, a subsidiary of Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoIT) is funding the project, launched in collaboration with Air University, Islamabad at a coat of Rs. 12.62 million. The ongoing project is expected to be completed next year. Sources at the Ministry on Monday said during recent years, it has been observed that there are significant difficulties in responding to emergency situations, particularly in onsite coordination between members of security or rescue teams. They said the emergency situations can range from hostage situations, to firefighting, and rescue in natural calamities like earthquakes and added communication in such scenarios is not necessarily restricted to audio communication, but may also involve text messages, live video feeds, geographical positioning information, triggered warning messages among others. The twotier WiMesh system comprises portable, batterypowered and multiradio wireless mesh nodes which will be equipped with antennas to create the backbone wireless mesh infrastructure. The sources said the second tier of WiMesh comprises of WiFi equipped mobile handheld phones carried by rescue workers. The mobile sets will automatically connect with the nearest mesh node through WiFi and will eventually enable the workers to communicate and coordinate with other team members. They said a noteworthy application of this system will be for coordination among firefighters. Moreover, the capability to quickly share live video feed of fire with other team members could be an added advantage. They said another application of the WiMesh system would be for communication between rescue workers in a limited geographical area affected by earthquake as during earthquakes, the traditional telecom infrastructure including towers and transmission lines are usually destroyed. A wireless multihop mesh network can be quickly put in place without any requirements of power or infrastructure. Rescue team members will not only communicate vocally with each other using WiFi but can also share videos, send messages, see the distribution of other team members over the map, thereby carrying out rescue activities more effectively. |