This book provides the details of developing a digital pedestrian map construction system over the intermittently connected mobile network. Over the past couple of decades, countries across the world, both developing and developed, have witnessed a significant number of disasters. Thus, it has become mandatory for each of the disaster-prone countries to equip themselves with appropriate measures to cope with the challenges of providing post-disaster services. Some of the serious challenges are incapacitated communication infrastructure, unstable power supply and inaccessible road networks. Out of these challenges, the destruction of road networks, especially in developing countries, acts as a major hindrance to effective disaster management. To be more specific, the success of a disaster response operation generally depends on the speed of evacuation and transportation of adequate amount of relief materials at the right time to the disaster-affected areas. Hence, map-based navigation support is a primary requirement for post-disaster relief operations. This book also provides the solution of the two other important post-disaster management services such as situational awareness and resource allocation. Both of these services are invariably dependent on the existence of navigation support. Finally, in order to offer such services, the other challenge is to address the problem of incapacitated communication infrastructure. This book also deals with such challenges in post-disaster scenarios and develops automated post-disaster management services.

This book provides the details of developing a digital pedestrian map construction system over the intermittently connected mobile network. Over the past couple of decades, countries across the world, both developing and developed, have witnessed a significant number of disasters. Thus, it has become mandatory for each of the disaster-prone countries to equip themselves with appropriate measures to cope with the challenges of providing post-disaster services. Some of the serious challenges are incapacitated communication infrastructure, unstable power supply and inaccessible road networks. Out of these challenges, the destruction of road networks, especially in developing countries, acts as a major hindrance to effective disaster management. To be more specific, the success of a disaster response operation generally depends on the speed of evacuation and transportation of adequate amount of relief materials at the right time to the disaster-affected areas. Hence, map-based navigation support is a primary requirement for post-disaster relief operations. This book also provides the solution of the two other important post-disaster management services such as situational awareness and resource allocation. Both of these services are invariably dependent on the existence of navigation support. Finally, in order to offer such services, the other challenge is to address the problem of incapacitated communication infrastructure. This book also deals with such challenges in post-disaster scenarios and develops automated post-disaster management services.

A large portion of the network capacity of an ad hoc network can be wasted by the medium access mechanisms of omni-directional antennas. To overcome this problem, researchers propose the use of directional or adaptive antennas that largely reduce radio interference, improving the utilization of wireless medium and the resulting network throughput. Enhancing the Performance of Ad Hoc Wireless Networks with Smart Antennas discusses these issues and challenges. Following an introduction to ad hoc networks, it presents an overview of basic Media Access Control (MAC) and routing protocols in ad hoc networks with omni-directional antennas. The book then focuses on the use of smart antennas in ad hoc networks and reviews the strategies used in designing MAC and routing protocols for improved medium utilization and improved routing performance with effective load balancing. Finally, it analyzes the design issues related to priority based quality-of-service (QoS) routing protocols, illustrating the potential of these antennas in comparison to omni directional antennas. The book concludes with an examination of open problems and challenges for ad hoc networks.