A Smartphone-based Post-Disaster Management Mechanism Using WiFi Tethering

Natural disasters often cause the breakdown of the power grid in the affected areas hampering telecommunication services. In the absence of electrical power undamaged cellular base stations switch to battery backup to sustain communication. However, owing to the sudden substantial increase in voice and data traffic, base stations become over-congested fast and battery backups quickly get exhausted. We propose a smartphone-based post-disaster management mechanism for managing traffic in the affected areas using the concept of WiFi tethering. Smartphones in the affected areas may turn themselves into temporary WiFi hotspots to provide internet connectivity and important communication abilities to nearby WiFi-enabled user devices. The hotspots can self-assess the number of new connections they can serve based on their leftover battery energy. Client devices, approaching the affected areas, can also self-select the most suitable hotspot to connect to depending on their proximity and nature of motion with respect to individual hotspots. Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) underlying networks are considered for this work.