A "Virtual SONET" routing architecture for ad hoc networks in environmental monitoring and emergency management

Ad hoc networks have increasing come into use for emergency management both as aid to detect the occurrence of a disaster and as a means to communicate in the aftermath of one. The use of sensor networks, a category of ad hoc networks, for environmental sensing can allow planning well ahead of a disaster's occurrence. The authors propose a routing architecture for sensors used in emergency management with the goal of reducing route maintenance overhead traffic while also providing fault tolerance for node failures and battery life savings. This work-in-progress architecture uses a zonal routing scheme utilizing a virtual ring mechanism for routing within each zone and identifies multiple gateway nodes connecting zones for traffic flows between zones.