M2M-enabled public safety services for mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

The perpetual rise in the number of emergencies around the globe has indicated a requirement for ubiquitous public safety services. Unfortunately, traditional public safety networks, being dependent on land mobile radio systems, fail to enable such services in all management stages of an emergency, namely, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. While infrastructure-based networks such as wireless local area networks (WLANs), realizing machine-to machine (M2M) networks, can enable such services with higher ubiquity, they only offer localized ubiquity. However, the aforementioned challenges can be mitigated by establishing infrastructure-less networks such as mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) through M2M communication between hand-held mobile devices closely attached to emergency-affected users. Nevertheless, the inherited challenges of MANETs, for instance, traffic congestion, mobility and service accessibility must be addressed in emergency environments to achieve ubiquitous public safety services in all stages of an emergency. Consequently, the first objective of this thesis is to introduce the idea of MANETs as enablers of public safety services in scenarios when the traditional public safety and the WLAN-based M2M networks are neither available nor effective to enable such services. Another objective of the thesis is to propose M2M-based solutions, integrating emergency-affected user behavior, to overcome inherited issues in MANETs to enable ubiquitous public safety services in all stages of emergency management. The above goals have been achieved in this thesis through the unique developments of a semantic traffic-aware framework, post-emergency mobility model, prediction-based service replication middleware and context-aware service selection middleware. Finally, through extensive simulations, this thesis shows that the developed M2M-based solutions can effectively enable ubiquitous public safety services in MANETs for complete emergency management.