The awesome power of large natural disasters or man-made incidents often compromises civilian and emergency communications over a large area. Traditional techniques concentrate on building stronger terrestrial infrastructure to withstand such events; but these are often overcome. Satellites are used as back-up or for emergency communications recovery. However, these may not have sufficient spatial capacity to serve a large user base, and users may not have sufficient terminals or be conversant with their use in an emergency. Consequently, command, communications, control, and situational awareness are compromised.
The workshop explores an integrated methodology for communications recovery. This describes a phased approach, starting with satellite communications, and transitioning to airborne relays. These would be gradually brought lower down to substitute for damaged infrastructure and to re-establish ground communications for normally used terminals and handsets while increasing spatial capacity.
Several issues must be addressed implementing this in a practical and user friendly manner. Some of these are 1) Selection of the most appropriate satcom and airborne relays, 2) Identifying surviving/unaffected ground infrastructure and controlling interference from the elevated relays to acceptable levels to minimize the consequences, 3) Multi-protocol considerations to enable optimal relaying and interoperation and to accommodate the wide varieties of communication on the ground, 4) Networking among airborne platforms and between these and spacecraft to extend the reach of the rescue relay system, 5) Regulations, since formal planning and regulatory authorization of recovery methods may not be feasible in the aftermath of a major incident that occupies a large area. Hence a well understood, formally validated and pre-screened methodology and CONOPS that can be implemented rapidly after a disaster are needed.
