Construction of IEEE802.11-based Wireless Network for Community Information Sharing in a Disaster-Affected Area

In the event of a disaster, communication networks including telephone, cell phone, and CATV may stop these services due to the damages caused by the disaster such as earthquake and typhoon. Even in that case, we should maintain communication lines to share the information of sufferers and to grasp the situation of the damaged-area, e.g. line disconnection of power and water supplies, building collapses, and injured persons. Wireless ad hoc network is an effective method to keep communication lines in these severe circumstances. We have constructed an IEEE802.11-based wireless network system in a community area in Yamaguchi-city, aiming to realize the communications among residents in the area in the disaster environment. Background of the network construction and the performance of the wireless network system are reported in this paper.