A Comprehensive Survey of Emergency Communication Network and Management

The performance of wireless communication network is important in emergency rescue operations while ensuring optimum usage of limited wireless resources. Due to the disruption of normal wireless communication in a post-disaster scenario, the sustenance of an emergency communication network plays a significant role in relief operations. Under such a scenario, it becomes crucial to monitor the performance and reliability of the protocol in a time-bound manner. Some of the prominent challenges faced by the communication network during this period are related to energy efficiency, resources allocation, reliable connectivity, QoS, network throughput, and interoperability. A comprehensive performance appraisal of the emergency network considering the above-mentioned aspects is extremely important. This review provides a comprehensive survey of the widely used communication technologies applied for setting up an emergency communication network to mitigate the post disaster aftermath. The article also delivers an overview of the integration of new technologies with the existing standards for improving the performance of the disaster communication networks. Finally, we propose some promising solutions to overcome the limitations of existing emergency communication technologies to improve the overall network performance.