Wireless Sensor Networks for integrated search and rescue efforts for disaster hit areas

The recent research and development in the domain of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have opened up tremendous opportunities and applications in many different scenarios. If we take into account the aftermaths of disaster, we certainly need to build up a mechanism to gather the data for the disaster hit area in which there is minimum delay and protocol we use should be energy efficient. This can be achieved by using wireless sensor network as they are energy efficient and can broadcast the data efficiently. The use of WSNs for search and rescue efforts is an evolving concept and numerous architectures have been studied and developed lately. This paper presents a conceptual design of a WSN based system aimed at aiding search and rescue missions in disaster hit area e.g. tsunami. People living in danger zone switch on their personal issued sensors after a warning is issued by relevant authorities. During and after disaster, this WSN is used to track and identify survivors, coordinate search efforts and assess on ground situation in real time.