MCDM-ECP: Multi criteria decision making method for emergency communication protocol in Disaster Area Wireless Network

Abstract

Disaster AreaWireless Networks (DAWNs) are widely deployed in natural or man-made disaster scenes, since the communication infrastructure may be completely destroyed by the disaster. This paper proposes a hybrid network architecture for DAWNs due to the mobility of first responders and refugees. Based on the link characterization of DAWNs, we choose four essential criteria and propose a multi-criteria decision-making method for emergency communication protocol (MCDM-ECP), which utilizes the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method to find the optimal next-hop node in DAWNs. Routing discovery and routing maintenance processes are included in the novel protocol. The simulation results show that MCDM-ECP performs better than other classical protocols both in energy consumption and packet received rate (PRR) for long-term emergency communications.