SAFIRE: A Self-Organizing Architecture for Information Exchange between First Responders

Disaster response requires quick and timely mobilization of relief efforts to save lives and property. Fundamental to these efforts is a reliable communications infrastructure that allows the disaster response teams to coordinate and exchange information in an efficient manner. Existing solutions for disaster response are inadequate as they suffer from interoperability problems and lack the appropriate amount of flexibility. In this paper, we propose SAFIRE, a novel multi-hop architecture for facilitating fast and reliable information exchange between first responders. The salient features of SAFIRE are (1) A decentralized cognitive radio-based approach for supporting direct communication between first responders, (2) A publish-subscribe mechanism for exchanging information among first responders, and (3) A flexible multi-layered policy framework for optimally configuring the system. We present the challenges in designing SAFIRE, and outline its basic components. We believe our exploration of such an architecture opens up a set of unique challenges related to the integration of different systems to realize SAFIRE, giving rise to new avenues for research in communication systems for disaster response.

[1]  Srinivasan Keshav,et al.  Low-cost communication for rural internet kiosks using mechanical backhaul , 2006, MobiCom '06.

[2]  Scott F. Midkiff,et al.  Cognitive Radios in Public Safety and Spectrum Management , 2005 .

[3]  Joseph Mitola,et al.  Cognitive radio: making software radios more personal , 1999, IEEE Wirel. Commun..

[4]  I.G.M.M. Niemegeers,et al.  Cognitive radio emergency networks - requirements and design , 2005, First IEEE International Symposium on New Frontiers in Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks, 2005. DySPAN 2005..

[5]  Ellen W. Zegura,et al.  A message ferrying approach for data delivery in sparse mobile ad hoc networks , 2004, MobiHoc '04.

[6]  Mark Handley,et al.  A scalable content-addressable network , 2001, SIGCOMM '01.

[7]  Jon M. Peha.  The digital TV transition: A chance to enhance public safety and improve spectrum auctions , 2006, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[8]  Anne-Marie Kermarrec,et al.  The many faces of publish/subscribe , 2003, CSUR.

[10]  A Mobile Crisis Management System for Emergency Services: from Concept to Field Test , 2006 .

[11]  Thomas Plagemann,et al.  Distributed Event Notification for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks , 2004, IEEE Distributed Systems Online.

[12]  Paul A. S. Ward,et al.  Practical Routing in Delay-Tolerant Networks , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

[13]  Hector Garcia-Molina,et al.  Publish/Subscribe in a Mobile Environment , 2001, MobiDe '01.

[14]  Mostafa Ammar,et al.  Multicasting in delay tolerant networks: semantic models and routing algorithms , 2005, WDTN '05.

[15]  H. Humphrey,et al.  Standards for privacy of individually identifiable health information. , 2003, Health care law monthly.

[16]  David R. Karger,et al.  Looking up data in P2P systems , 2003, CACM.

[17]  Kevin R. Fall,et al.  A delay-tolerant network architecture for challenged internets , 2003, SIGCOMM '03.

[18]  Samuel Madden,et al.  CarTelDB: Continuous Query Processing in an Intermittently Connected World , 2007, ICDE 2007.

[19]  K. Phillips-Fein.  The 9/11 Commission Report , 2007 .

[20]  Jean Bacon,et al.  Distributed multicast grouping for publish/subscribe over mobile ad hoc networks , 2005, IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, 2005.

[21]  Srinivasan Keshav,et al.  GUESS: gossiping updates for efficient spectrum sensing , 2006, MobiShare '06.