A hybrid ad hoc networking protocol for disaster recovery resource management

Following a major disaster, the infrastructure supporting wired and mobile networking is expected to be inoperable over large areas. Thus, emergency response teams must communicate using their own networking equipment. A large-scale peer-to-peer network offers fast and flexible deployment but requires cooperation among nodes. Usage constraints must be imposed to prevent overloading the shared network capacity. In particular, disparate communication models (for route building and optimisation, resource management, and localised status flooding) must be integrated. We propose a hybrid network protocol which dynamically assigns network capacity to these three communication models by imposing transmission delays in accordance with their attempted usage rates.