Thesis Defense - Huang

This dissertation is about the design and implementation of SenSearch -- the first Search and Rescue System using Sensor Nodes as Witnesses, and the first of the Delay Tolerant Network to run in the wilderness areas. In the Search And Rescue scenario, the most valuable but hard to obtain information is the last seen point and time of the missing person. Using SenSearch, we can automate this process the do it in a systematically way. We use sensor nodes to witness to presence of other sensor nodes. The details of design and implementation for how to discover another node, to route the data back to control center power efficiently, and to secure the system are described in this dissertation.

The method and implementation can be used by the Search And Rescue team, and be further expanded to wildlife monitoring for animal disease research, which is a problem with to proper technology to solve nowadays.