On-the-Fly Establishment of Multihop Wireless Access Networks for Disaster Recovery

This article proposes a novel approach to on-the-fly establishment of multihop wireless access networks (OEMAN) for disaster response. OEMAN extends Internet connectivity from surviving access points to disaster victims using their own mobile devices. OEMAN is set up on demand using wireless virtualization to create virtual access points on mobile devices. Virtual access points greedily form a tree-based topology, configured automatically for naming and addressing, which is then used to provide multihop wireless Internet access to users. Ordinary users can easily connect to the Internet through OEMAN as if they are connected through conventional access points. After connecting, users naturally contribute to the network extension, realizing the self-supporting capability of a disaster's local communities. The proposed scheme establishes a wireless access network quickly, which is essential in emergency relief situations. Furthermore, OEMAN is transparent to users and cost effective as it does not require additional hardware. Experimental evaluations on top of our preliminary prototype over Windows-based laptops confirm OEMAN's feasibility and its effectiveness for multihop paths of up to seven hops, and standard Internet services such as audio and video streaming.