Flying Communication Server in case of a Largescale Disaster
Toru Kobayashi, Hiroaki Matsuoka, Shouta Betsumiya · 2016
We have developed a Flying Communication Server, which is a drone, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), equipped with a single board computer implemented in a Wi-Fi base station, a Web server and a WebRTC server. With this system, even in situations in which the cellular telephony network/public wireless network have been collapsed due to a large-scale disaster, users who have their own private smart devices such as smart phones will be able to share the video of an affected area from the sky, exchange the text chat asynchronously, and execute the real-time video communication. In order to make it possible, we proposed three communication layers architecture based on Wi-Fi standard technologies and Web technologies. In this study, we have checked a range of connectivity of the Flying Communication Server such as Wi-Fi distance, frame rate to distribute video stream, and concurrent connection user numbers. We have also evaluated the text chat and the real-time video communication availability. Then, we have confirmed the effectiveness of the Flying Communication Server concerning to information sharing and asynchronous/realtime communication in case of a large-scale disaster.