Disaster-Resilient Communication Framework for Heterogeneous Vehicular Networks

Most of natural disaster events have caused damage to the basic infrastructure. This leads to impossibility for victims and rescuers to communicate through the Internet. Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) and Moveable and Deployable Resource Unit (MDRU) are two popular solutions for recovery of the communication system. Based on the concept of wireless mesh network, the NerveNet is a disaster-resilient mesh-topology network which is strong against failures in disaster. Moreover, vehicles are considered as a key component in which MDRU can be deployed. In this paper, we propose a disaster-resilient communication framework for heterogeneous vehicular network (HetVNet). The proposed framework integrates NerveNet with the traditional network. We also show our implementation of the network switching algorithm for selecting either NerveNet or LTE for the HetVNet. The real experiments were conducted using the campus shuttle buses in Chulalongkorn University. The results show that the proposed framework can operate well in normal scenario, HetVNet scenario, and disaster scenario. Specifically, in the disaster situation where LTE network is not available, all of the data traffic is transferred via NerveNet. In the normal situation where NerveNet and LTE networks are available, the data traffic can be transferred over both of them.