Targeted Emergency Network Services Deployment Algorithm for Disaster Relief Agencies

When natural disasters strike, network infrastructure is often completely destroyed, disabling communication; this significantly hampers rescue and relief efforts. Therefore, emergency communication network infrastructure must be deployed to provide communication at ground zero to rescue and relief agencies. The deployment strategy has to consider these humanitarian agencies’ varying degrees of responsibilities which correspond to their levels of communication needs. In this paper, we propose a more precise deployment of emergency communication network based on our field study of how relief organizations collaborated at ground zero in Aceh, Indonesia, post Tsunami 2004. Building on our field findings, the emergency communication deployment is formulated to a k-Weighted Deployment problem, achieving a more customized delivery of communication network services to organizations according to their varying level of responsibilities and communication needs, including resource provisioning strategy. Finally, we devise a two-stage implementation protocol to achieve the objective of a more effective and targeted deployment to areas affected by natural disasters.