An Assessment of a Wireless Mesh Network Performance for Urban Search and Rescue Task

In this paper we present a reliable system for predicting the body position, or pose, of Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) dogs. We demonstrate that the Canine Pose Estimation (CPE) system can provide a reliable estimate for some poses and when coupled with effective wireless transmission over a mesh network, pose information can be made available to remote a handler who cannot see her dog due to visual and physical obstructions. Pose estimates are time sensitive as the dog changes its body position often, thus it is important that pose data arrives at its destination quickly. Propagation delay and packet delivery ratio measuring algorithms were developed and used to appraise Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) performance as a means of carriage for this time-critical data. The experiments were conducted in the rooms of a building where the radio characteristics closely resembled those of a partially collapsed building-a typical US&R environment. This paper presents the results of experiments conducted in this environment--not through simulation. The results demonstrate that it is possible to receive the canine pose estimation data in real-time although accuracy of the results depend on the network size and the deployment environment.