A Survey on Multihop Ad Hoc Networks for Disaster Response Scenarios

Abstract

Disastrous events are one of the most challenging applications of multihop ad hoc networks due to possible damages of existing telecommunication infrastructure. The deployed cellular communication infrastructure might be partially or completely destroyed after a natural disaster. Multihop ad hoc communication is an interesting alternative to deal with the lack of communications in disaster scenarios. They have evolved since their origin, leading to different ad hoc paradigms such as MANETs, VANETs, DTNs, or WSNs. This paper presents a survey on multihop ad hoc network paradigms for disaster scenarios. It highlights their applicability to important tasks in disaster relief operations. More specifically, the paper reviews the main work found in the literature, which employed ad hoc networks in disaster scenarios. In addition, it discusses the open challenges and the future research directions for each different ad hoc paradigm.