E-MESH
An 802.11 b/g wireless MANET specifically designed for tactical emergency use
What is it?
E-MESH
is a meshing network system for emergency responders. The “big idea” is
to give emergency responders a versatile, flexible, and
easily-deployable IP network for use at (and behind) emergency scenes.
Uses may include collaboration between emergency responders (e.g. a
NetMeeting between Battalion Chiefs on different sides of an incident,
comparing perspectives on the event with pictures), monitoring remote
sensors (e.g. IP cameras on battery packs, providing an "unmanned"
extra set of eyes)
It was developed from Robin (or RoBIn), the
firmware underlying Open-Mesh. We have made relatively minor
changes to the firmware to meet three main objectives:
- don't require an internet connection and provide a reliable local-area network (LAN) even when the internet is not present,
- don't interrupt the service, and
- keep it as simple and inexpensive as possible.
It has been developed (to this point) by Bill Moffitt and Jim Varner.
Where did this come from?
Several answers to that:
1.)
From the outstanding, outrageously good work of the RoBIn and Open-Mesh
team, who provided the basis for the software. It is worth mentioning
that Robin and Open-Mesh are developed on top of OpenWRT, OLSR, and
BATMAN.
2.) From Bill's work as an emergency communications
volunteer with the City of San Jose, California and his work founding
Ayrstone Productivity and its AyrMesh product, which is also based on
Robin.
3.) From Jim's many years with the Redwood City Fire Dept.
4.)
From a meeting of the SVWUX group (specifically on the SCEWN project), at which Bill and Jim met and
realized they had a common vision for using wireless IP communications
to streamline the work of emergency response crews.
What is the state of the code?
This
is "early beta" - it works, definitely, but it's still pretty
preliminary. The foundation (Robin) is pretty solid, but there are a
number of additional features we want to build into it to make it
faster and easier to use.
Can I see the code?
Yes; you need to download the source for Robin, then download the source for E-Mesh,
replace the appropriate files in Robin (specifically in [your robin
directory]/robin-build/robin-mesh/files/) with the corresponding files
in E-Mesh, and build the firmware.
Do I have to build the code myself?
No, of course not - simply download it here and install it on your Atheros 2315/6-based device. See the Open-Mesh web site for a good list of compatible devices suitable for E-MESH. We are using the very small but capable Ubiquiti PicoStation2 HP for our testing.
Will you help me?
Yes, of course, as our time allows.
Will you just set it up for us?
Yes, for a pretty reasonable fee. Send us an email and we'll talk.
