RAPID: Collaborative Research:Using Lessons from the Disaster in Japan to Develop Communications for Emergency Situations

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NSF: RAPID: Collaborative Research: Using Lessons from the Disaster in Japan to Develop Communications for Emergency SituationsDuring disasters, the telecommunication infrastructure are usually heavily damaged or overloaded, which leads to serious disruptions in the warning and rescue operations. Similarly, part of the Japanese cellular Early Earthquake Warning (EEW) system were damaged during the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. This collaborative project proposes to study the disruption of emergency communications during the last disaster in Japan and investigate corresponding solutions. In particular, the project has the following three integrated objectives: 1) To study the cellular EEW system of Japan and its use in the March 11th earthquake in Japan; 2) To study the communication problems that were encountered leading to disruptions in warning and rescue operations; and 3) To explore tower-less phone-to-phone direct communication mode that can make the cellular phone communications much more resilient during disasters. This project supports collection of data about communication disruptions in Japan; treatment of such data to better understand the impact of telecommunication failures; and finally, solutions how to enhance the cellular system with ad hoc communications. The project is a close collaboration among PIs inthe US, their collaborators in Japanese universities and cellular service providers in Japan. The outcome of this project will lead to a deeper understanding of tradeoffs among robustness, simplicity, scalability, self-organization and adaptivity in designing a cellular emergency broadcast system for USA and beyond. The results of this project will have a direct and practical impact on developing an effective emergency warning system using the latest communication devices.