Byeong-pyo Jeong

Earthquake intensity estimation and damage detection using remote sensing data for global rescue operations

In order to support global rescue operations, we propose a new earthquake damage detection method based on a combination of both the result estimated by using earthquake information (magnitude, location of source, detailed ground conditions, and distance attenuation equation), and change detection using multi-temporal SAR data. First, to find collapsed buildings and houses on the earths surface, we adopt a difference image calculated from multi-temporal SAR images observed before and after the earthquake. Next, to estimate seismic intensity and probability of destruction caused by the earthquake, we apply an earthquake engineering model. Finally, damaged area is calculated using a logical AND of difference image and the destruction probability. In order to show that we can obtain a damage detection map which corresponds with the actual damage of houses, we applied the method to simulations of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China.

Earthquake damage detection using remote sensing data

In this study, we propose a new earthquake damage detection method based on a combination of the results estimated by using earthquake information (magnitude and location of source) and the change of the earths surface observed by SAR. As a map produced by the detection method has less noise than a coherence ratio image, we found that the proposed method has better detection ability than that which only uses the change of coherence value.

Three-Way Pinpointing of Emergency Call from RFID-Reader-Equipped Cellular Phone

The ability to accurately pinpoint the point of origin of an emergency call can greatly increase response times of emergency services. Emergency calls made from cellular phones can only be traced by the Global Positioning System (GPS) or cell-based positioning, which are sometimes unacceptably inaccurate; they cannot provide information on, e.g. the exact floor of a building and also suffer from blind spots. We have been developing a system that can determine the location of a cellular phone using in-built passive or active radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers and GPS receivers. This paper introduces the outline of the prototype system.

Pinpointing the Place of Origin of a Cellular Phone Emergency Call Using Active RFID Tags

When police, fire or ambulance personnel receive an emergency call, they must pinpoint its place of origin in order to respond quickly. When such a call is made from a cellular phone, its place of origin can be determined by using GPS or a cell-based positioning method. However, these methods are sometimes inaccurate and have blind spots. We developed a system for determining location using RFID-reader- equipped cellular phones and RFID tags. We outline the prototype system here.

Experimental Demonstration of Disaggregated Emergency Optical System for Quick Disaster Recovery

Disaggregation and white-box approaches are useful in expediting disaster recovery of optical transport networks. When an optical network system is damaged by a large disaster, the damaged devices can be replaced by the disaggregated functional devices, while disregarding vendor boundaries. In the light of the disaggregation and white-box approaches, we are developing a prototype of disaggregated portable emergency optical system (EOS) for early and low-cost postdisaster recovery. The EOS is customizable, and different functions can be selected to meet the different requirements in disaster recovery. In addition to replacing the damaged functions of the original optical system with an EOS, we introduce two new disaggregated functions into the EOS for postdisaster recovery. First, we introduce an optical supervisory channel handshake scheme to aid the interconnection of the surviving optical resources. Second, we introduce a scheme to achieve the quick recovery of the damaged control plane with the surviving or first restored wireless access capability. This is highly desired not only for emergency network control, but also for the quick collection of the network damage information. These two new functions have been implemented into the EOS prototype. We experimentally demonstrated the network recovery of the data-plane and the control-plane with the EOS.

An implementation of multichannel multi-interface MANET for fire engines and experiments with WINDS satellite mobile earth station

We propose a novel communication system for an emergency fire response team, which provides Internet service on the way to and in the disaster area. The system is composed of a multi-interface mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) router, a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, and two Wi-Fi interfaces with directional antennas, which can be easily attached to the roof of a vehicle. The front-side Wi-Fi interface of the vehicle is operated in the infrastructure mode, and the rear-side interface is operated in the access point mode. Different channels are assigned to each AP interface of the vehicles. Infrastructure-mode Wi-Fi interfaces automatically scan and connect to an appropriate AP interface and create MANET links. Some experiments using this wireless system with the WINDS satellite mobile earth station and nine fire engines were conducted in Ebetsu, Hokkaido. We measured the TCP throughput and confirmed that a throughput of more than 10 Mbps was able to be obtained by most of the node pairs. In addition, high-vision video streaming was able to be successfully transmitted to the streaming server on the Internet through MANET and satellite communication links while they were platooning.

Earth Stations deployment for maximizing system throughput in Satellite/Solar-Powered Mesh Integrated Network

After a disaster strikes, the disaster victims usually become isolated and unable to utilize communication services for an extended period of time. Therefore, it is essential to establish a communication network that can operate when there is no power or infrastructure. In this paper, we focus on Satellite/Solar-powered Mesh Integrated Networks (SMIN), which are composed of a communication satellite, Earth Stations (ESs) and solar-powered Mesh Routers (MRs). A SMIN can connect to external networks via satellite and provide communication services in a large area through the wireless mesh network (WMN). To maximize the amount of communication traffic from the WMN, we aim to optimize the number of ESs and its deployment. When the number of ESs increases, the hop count between a MR and its closest ES decreases, thus resulting in an improved connectivity in the route. However, since the ESs share the bandwidth of satellite, allocated bandwidth to each ES decreases as the number of ESs increases. Therefore, we aim to optimize the number and deployment pattern of ESs. Additionally, we validate the amount of aggregated traffic that can be sent to the satellite through numerical analysis.

Demonstrations of combined small-UAV with satellite system for large-scale disaster

This paper describes overviews on two demonstration experiments of combinedxed- wing unmanned aircraft (UA) with satellite telecommunicatio systems for a large-scale disaster. Therst demonstration experiment is for video image delivery of disaster area even immediately after the occurrence of damage. To understand the situation in disaster area, the camera mounted on a small-UA is used in this demonstration experiment. The small-UA can photograph the moving picture during the circling, and the pictures are deliv- ered to non-isolated areas via ground station (GS) and satellite telecommunicatio system in an almost real time. The second demonstration is for providing temporal communication lines rapidly deployable to the isolated areas of disaster area until the recovery of ground infrastructures. To achieve temporal communication lines, small UA equipped with on- board transceiver (or repeater) is used to communicate with the GSs. The small UA-based wireless bridge system and satellite communication systems are serially concatenated to extend the network. This paper presents the successful results of these demonstrations and the effects of this combined system for large-scale disasters.

Ka-band Broadband Mobile Earth Station for WINDS Satellite

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has developed a Ka-band mobile earth station which achieves 24 Mbps in land mobile regions using the wideband internet engineering test and demonstration satellite. The mobile earth station is installed with a dual reflector antenna of 650 mm diameter, a block up converter with an output of 20 W, and a mono-pulse tracking system with 3-axis gimbals mechanisms for satellite tracking and communications. Using this terminal, the transmission data rate of 18 Mbps were confirmed. High definition television (HDTV) transmission was also conducted using an onboard HDTV camera in suburban and expressway areas. In this test, successful HDTV transmission was confirmed under the moving conditions.

Concept of Satellite Communication Facility for Disaster Support located in the Tohoku District

It is increasingly difficult to rely solely on terrestrial communications for use during disasters when the terrestrial communication infrastructure is extensively damaged in the affected area. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, fully automatic transportable earth stations were recognized as being among the most important aspects of disaster response. The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) commenced the development of fully automatic earth stations and a test facility in the Tohoku district. A satellite communication network can be easily deployed using these automatic earth stations to cover the affected areas, and the communication links can be steadily re-established. We also recognized that the drastic increase in traffic during such disasters significantly affected the limited communication