Faculty and Student Teams Program

Project Descriptions

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
National Security Directorate

Resilient and Robust Communications for Post-Disaster Response

This is a request for a faculty and two students from institutions of higher education. The request is for a faculty member and his/her student(s) to work with Mr. Paul Ewing and his research associates at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to study and develop a conceptual model for resilient communications systems during post-disaster.

Project Description

The objective of this project is to study how to achieve resilient and robust communications systems during and after the response to a natural disaster or catastrophic event. The outcome of this project should be a better understanding and better insight into the critical communications issues and problems experienced in disasters and possible novel and innovative solutions that become candidates for development, design and/or testing. Some of the questions the project should address are: 1) What are key design issues that should be considered for these communications systems? 2) What is the best way to rapidly deploy the communication system after the disaster occurs? 3) Should the system be used on a regular basis so emergency responders are already familiar with it, or should it be a special system that emergency responders use only in exceptional circumstances? 4) How effective is satellite technology? 5) How are communications needs different during various phases of emergency response (e.g., before the disaster, during the disaster, search and rescue immediately after the disaster, evacuation, moving people to places for food and shelter)? 6) How and what types of communications systems may be used in damage assessment? 7) Substantiate the impact of how interoperability problems faced by first responders and emergency personnel at the local, state, federal levels. At the outset, the project will study and document the inherent weaknesses in the existing communications system that makes it susceptible to failure in the face of a major disaster. Extensive collaboration with first responders should provide vital insight into the impact of disasters on communications systems, and will also help to identify critical requirements a communications system for first responders must meet.

The SERRI Contact for the project is:

Programmatic Contact:
Benjamin Thomas, Jr.
thomasbjr@ornl.gov
(865) 574-5438

Technical Contact:
Paul Ewing
ewingpd@ornl.gov
(865) 576-5019

Applicants’ Responsibilities and Relationship to Project

Applicants will receive support under the Department of Energy Faculty Student Team Research Program (FaST) to work collaboratively with the project research team at the Laboratory for up to 10 weeks during the summer of 2008. The exact appointment period in the timeframe of June to August will be scheduled by mutual agreement between the host divisions at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the successful applicant. Faculty will be expected to identify students from their campuses to participate in the FaST program. The faculty member will provide some mentorship to students during the summer research activities. The faculty and students must participate as a group and serve their appointments concurrently. It is expected that the faculty member and the students become an integral part of the research team working on this project and that opportunities for continued collaboration may be identified.

Qualifications of Ideal Candidate

This is a request for a faculty and two students from institutions of higher education. The faculty should have knowledge of the ORNL structure and the SERRI project. The opportunity for the faculty and student(s) to work at ORNL during the summer of 2008 will allow the research team to improve and direct their research objectives relative to resilient and robust communications systems. The faculty member should be a chair of Department of Computer Engineering at their university and hold a doctorate degree in electrical engineering. The student(s) who will be associated with this research is (are) expected to be an advanced engineering student (junior, senior, or graduate student) with a GPA above 3.25.

Support and Financial Commitments

The successful candidate will receive a stipend based on the academic salary, travel expenses to and from the Laboratory, and a housing allowance. Students recommended by the faculty member for participation in the program will receive a stipend of $400/week for each week at the Laboratory, plus a housing allowance, and reimbursement for transportation expenses to and from the ORNL. Funds are provided for this program from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science in partnership with the National Science Foundation, from ORNL, and from other sources.

See Financial Information.