IEEE 2015 Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)
Using Open-source Hardware to Support Disadvantaged Communications Andrew Weinert, Hongyi Hu, Chad Spensky, and Benjamin Bullough MIT Lincoln Laboratory 244 Wood Street Lexington, MA 02420-9108 {andrew.weinert,hongyi.hu,chad.spensky,ben.bullough}@ll.mit.edu Abstract—During a disaster, conventional communications have transformed response [2]. However, there is frequently infrastructures are often compromised, which prevents local a disconnect between the realities the information systems populations from contacting family, friends, and colleagues. The at the affected location and those in the ubiquitous cloud. lack of communication also impedes responder efforts to gather, Internet enabled web technologies such as crowdsourcing [3] organize, and disseminate information. This problem is made and social media [4] have helped facilitate interaction across worse by the unique cost and operational constraints typically these actors, but fail when communications at the affected associated with the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) space. In response, we present a low-cost, scalable system region are either degraded or nonexistent due to either natural that creates a wide-area, best-effort, ad-hoc wireless network for or human actions. For example, an estimated three million emergency information. The Communication Assistance Technol- people were without cellular service immediately following ogy over Ad-Hoc Networks (CATAN) system embraces the maker the Haiti Earthquake (2010) [5]. Similarly, cellphone networks and do it yourself (DIY) communities by leveraging open-source were overwhelmed in the moments after the 2013 Boston and hobbyist technologies to create cheap, lightweight, battery- Marathon bombings [6]. This effectively disconnects the peo- powered nodes that can be deployed quickly for a variety of ple in the affected region from the rest of the world (e.g., their operations.
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