{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,10]],"date-time":"2026-03-10T15:21:43Z","timestamp":1773156103639,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,5,22]],"date-time":"2018-05-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1526947200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>While there have been important advances within wireless communication technology, the provision of communication support during disaster relief activities remains an open issue. The literature in disaster research reports several major restrictions to conducting first response activities in urban areas, given the limitations of telephone networks and radio systems to provide digital communication in the field. In search-and-rescue operations, the communication requirements are increased, since the first responders need to rely on real-time and reliable communication to perform their activities and coordinate their efforts with other teams. Therefore, these limitations open the door to improvisation during disaster relief efforts. In this paper, we argue that flying ad-hoc networks can provide the communication support needed in these scenarios, and propose a new solution towards that goal. The proposal involves the use of flying witness units, implemented using drones, that act as communication gateways between first responders working at different locations of the affected area. The proposal is named the Flying Real-Time Network, and its feasibility to provide communication in a disaster scenario is shown by presenting both a real-time schedulability analysis of message delivery, as well as simulations of the communication support in a physical scenario inspired by a real incident. The obtained results were highly positive and consistent, therefore this proposal represents a step forward towards the solution of this open issue.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s18051662","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,5,23]],"date-time":"2018-05-23T03:14:24Z","timestamp":1527045264000},"page":"1662","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":22,"title":["Flying Real-Time Network to Coordinate Disaster Relief Activities in Urban Areas"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"given":"Matias","family":"Micheletto","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computers, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient\u00edficas y T\u00e9cnicas (CONICET), Bah\u00eda Blanca 8000, Argentina"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5671-7575","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Vinicius","family":"Petrucci","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Universidade Federal do Bah\u00eda, Bah\u00eda 40110909, Brazil"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0382-477X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rodrigo","family":"Santos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computers, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient\u00edficas y T\u00e9cnicas (CONICET), Bah\u00eda Blanca 8000, Argentina"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Javier","family":"Orozco","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computers, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient\u00edficas y T\u00e9cnicas (CONICET), Bah\u00eda Blanca 8000, Argentina"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Daniel","family":"Mosse","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0431-8767","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sergio","family":"Ochoa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8370456, Chile"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9414-646X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Roc","family":"Meseguer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Architecture, Universitat Polit\u00e8cnica de Catalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,5,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"71","DOI":"10.1016\/j.inffus.2013.05.009","article-title":"Human-centric wireless sensor networks to improve information availability during urban search and rescue activities","volume":"22","author":"Ochoa","year":"2015","journal-title":"Inf. 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