An SDN Approach for an Energy Efficient Heterogeneous Communication Network in Disaster Scenarios

Abstract

Wireless access technologies have been extensively developed aiming to give users the ability to connect to their expected networks anytime, anywhere. This leads to an increment of the number of wireless interfaces integrated into a single mobile device, hence, it allows the device to be able to connect to multiple access networks. However, in some specific cases such as natural disasters, having an uncorrupted and timely information exchanging means is critical for affected victims to survive or to connect to the outside world. This is because the essential network infrastructures in these cases could be destroyed causing a large number of systems to stop working. In that cases, the victims need a heterogeneous communications network in which they can communicate, without a doubt, by using different wireless access technologies, i.e., Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The network must also be able to smoothly change the access technologies, or called a vertical handover, to ensure QoS for ongoing applications. In addition, the network must have a mechanism to save energy. For these reasons, an SDN approach, which has been proposed in a previous work, is considered. The performance of the system has been validated by a set of experiments in a real testbed. The obtained results show that the proposed vertical handover can save at least 24.42 per cent of the energy consumed by the wireless communication. The handover delay with different UDP traffic is less than 150ms. Moreover, the network allows a device using Bluetooth to talk with another one using Wi-Fi over a heterogeneous connection where the end-to-end jitter is mainly below 20ms and the packet loss rate is as small as 0.2 per cent.

Evaluation of VoIP QoS Performance in Wireless Mesh Networks

“…This better quality is usually achieved by reducing the number of hops, delay, jitter and packet loss using routing policies, traffic engineering, traffic shaping, QoS features configuration techniques on infrastructural devices, or networking equipment. However, if such networks are affected by either natural or man-made disasters, the supporting infrastructure for VoIP is equally affected [19]; this then limits affected people's access to emergency services and hence puts their lives in danger. A backup or supportive, self-forming and self-healing network for emergency situations using mobile phones with Wi-Fi capability can respond to such scenarios [20].…”

“…They also need to send and retrieve data to/from a central command. In case of large-scale multinational emergency response efforts, the communication becomes more difficult since teams may use different communication technologies [19]. In such cases, a unique communication system through which first responders, rescue teams, and affected people could get connected and communicate is very much important in order to save lives, protect public infrastructure and coordinate efforts in a timely and efficient way.…”

“…7 of 26 [19]. In such cases, a unique communication system through which first responders, rescue teams, and affected people could get connected and communicate is very much important in order to save lives, protect public infrastructure and coordinate efforts in a timely and efficient way.…”

Performance evaluation of UE-controlled intelligent handover algorithm for natural disaster

“…The mobile operators need to propose a countermeasure to make sure users in the affected area receive satisfying network quality while prolong battery life of base station [6][7]. If there is no countermeasure taken, the battery life becomes critical, eventually the traffic will becomes congestion, user experience may degrades and rescue operation will becomes difficult.…”

Performance analysis of handover parameter for natural disaster in LTE-A network

“…However, user has to choose among five different direction which is a little complicated. Meanwhile, in [21], the authors proposed a technique to save energy by using software defined network for heterogeneous network in emergency environment. It is use to support victims in disaster situations by adding two new criteria counting energy efficiency and robust heterogeneous communication an software defined network for providing an energy saving in heterogeneous network for victims in emergency environment.…”