Emergency Communication Network Based On Drones

Nowadays, effective communication during emergencies is a critical challenge. Catastrophic events like earthquakes, wildfires, or flooding affect traditional communication networks by damaging the telecommunication infrastructure. One of the consequences of the shrunk working telecommunication infrastructure is that the trapped survivors can not contact the emergency services or send their locations, resulting in a delayed response from the rescuers. This paper presents the implementation of a temporal Emergency Communication System (ECS) based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), such as drones, for emergencies implemented over the drones working to form an Emergency Communication Network (ECN). This work results reveal effective bilateral connectivity in simulated emergencies; the communication between end users, such as victims and emergency personnel, was viable with less than a 1s delay when the victim was separated 10m from the ECN. Each drone has an average Non-line of Sight (NLOS) communication range of 20 m even when using Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) low-cost hardware, implying that by using dedicated hardware, extensive coverage areas can easily be achieved.