DisasterRadio

Introduction

DisasterRadio is an off-grid (solar-powered) low-bandwidth long-range mesh network built on free and open source software and affordable open hardware.

A disaster-resilient communications network powered by the sun.

The nodes are small and entirely self-contained units that can be deployed simply by leaving them in a place with sun. They are intended for either manual or drone-deployment on rooftops or in windows. They use high gain omni-directional antennas on 915 MHz using the LoRa PHY (Chirp Spread Spectrum) to talk to each-other and a downward-pointing/inward-pointing high gain wifi antenna to talk to user devices (phones/tables/laptops) inside the buildings on which they are placed. They use a low-power microcontroller running a web server that lets anyone use the network as long as they have a device with wifi and a web-browser.

Bandwidth is < 2000 kbits/sec.

The in-development apps are secure chat and community resource mapping (an offline map that communities can use to add resources, like tidepools).

Code is here: https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-radio-nodemcu

juul gave a talk about this at the 2017 BATTLEMESH in Vienna. Slides

Status as of June 10th 2017: Basic chat between two nodes working.

A more fleshed-out website should appear here soon.