Wireless Network System with Autonomous Antenna Actuator Control for Disaster Information

In Japan, there have been a number of serious natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami, as represented by the East Japan Great Earthquake in 2011. When a large scale disaster occurs, information and communication technology (ICT) performs important rule to save the human life from the disaster and to reduce disaster victims. Particularly in mountainous areas, the residents are completely isolated from other areas due to the disconnection and distraction of telecommunication means. In the stricken area, inter-vehicle communication technology is much more suitable from the points of mobility and electric power supply for telecommunication equipments because communication network can be quickly reconfigured and the network topology can be easily and quickly developed. However, since in mountain area, the place where a vehicles node is arranged is limited, it is necessary to expand the communication distance between the vehicle nodes as much as possible. In this paper, in order to establish the long distance communication in wireless network environment, a dynamic antenna direction control method is introduced to maximize the throughput or minimize the packet loss rate and round trip time between the target vehicle nodes by automatically controlling the antenna direction. The prototype system is constructed and its performance analysis were carried out and verify our suggested system.