The efficient use of communication technologies during disaster scenarios is vital for the relief and rescue works as well as for the disaster affected people. During the disaster scenarios, links between the Radio Access Network (RAN) and the Core Network (CN) might be broken. If the link between such affected nodes can be re-established via node-to-node communication, the data from the users can be transported to the network. Thus, this utilization of node-to-node communication can be a key technological achievement for cellular networks during such scenarios. The aim of this paper is to present the possible realization of a macro site node-to-node sensor network functionality for cellular networks during disaster scenarios. The merits of 3GPP LTE technology have been utilized in this paper to present a framework for this node-to-node communication in 3GPP LTE technology.
Keywords-disaster scenarios, LTE, node-to-node communication, WSN.
I.INTRODUCTION Communication has played a vital role during different disaster scenarios from its early development to the present day. Communication techniques have been used for providing early information about the disaster and during the emergency rescue and relief operation for disaster affected people. Thus, during crisis events, communication is critical for disaster management. The use of wireless communication for the disaster management backs to events surrounding the sinking of "Titanic" in the night of April 13-14, 1912. The radio communication system was vital communicating with nearby ships because of which they changed their course for rescue of the passengers onboard in the "Titanic" [1]. Moreover, the Tsunami of 2004 at Indian Ocean was an alert for the world on the need for efficient communication system during an emergency for disaster management. Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) can be an effective communication technology in the disaster scenarios to transfer the data from the sensors, establish communication between relief teams or with the victims. The Tampere Convention, organized by joint effort of UN and ITU in 1998 in Tampere, Finland, facilitates the use of telecommunication for humanitarian aid, removing regulatory barriers and in the use of frequencies [2].
A. Frequency Reuse PatternReference [7] shows the frequency reuse scheme where the available frequency band is divided into several sub-bands. A set of frequencies are allocated for cell edge users in a cell with full downlink transmission power. Users in the inner cell are served with reduced power. The frequency reuse pattern for the
C. Network RestorationThe maintenance of the network can re-establish a communication link between the affected eNodeBs with the EPC. Then, the repaired node should act as a last hop for providing the relay function to the EPC. Once, role of the repaired node in the node-to-node communication is over, it can notify EPC and should switch back to the normal state.VI. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK This paper presented the new functionality of node-to-node communicatio...