title: 802.11 wireless infrastructure to enhance medical response to disasters.
abstract: 802.11 (WiFi) is a well established network communications protocol that has wide applicability in civil infrastructure. This paper describes research that explores the design of 802.11 networks enhanced to support data communications in disaster environments. The focus of these efforts is to create network infrastructure to support operations by Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) units and Federally-sponsored regional teams that respond to mass casualty events caused by a terrorist attack with chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological weapons or by a hazardous materials spill. In this paper, we describe an advanced WiFi-based network architecture designed to meet the needs of MMRS operations. This architecture combines a Wireless Distribution Systems for peer-to-peer multihop connectivity between access points with flexible and shared access to multiple cellular backhauls for robust connectivity to the Internet. The architecture offers a high bandwidth data communications infrastructure that can penetrate into buildings and structures while also supporting commercial off-the-shelf end-user equipment such as PDAs. It is self-configuring and is self-healing in the event of a loss of a portion of the infrastructure. Testing of prototype units is ongoing.
authors.affiliation: California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Techology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Mustafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Arisoylu
authors.forename: Rajesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.forename: Ramesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Leslie A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Lenert
mesh_terms: D003195:Computer Communication Networks / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000592:standards; D004189:Disaster Planning; D004190:Disasters; D004631:Emergency Medical Service Communication Systems / Q000592:standards; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D018635:Rescue Work; D013685:Telecommunications / Q000295:instrumentation; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000458:organization & administration; D023481:Terrorism