Frugal Engineering Achieving More with Fewer Resources

PRESENTED BY :
Sarthak Mehra (B.Tech 3rd Year CSE) College of Technology and Engineering

Sustaining life from minor or major level Calamities with a

Frugal information system

What is Frugal Engineering !

Frugal Engineering is the science of breaking up complex engineering processes into its basic components and then re-building each component in the most economical manner. The end result is a simpler, more robust and easier to handle final process. It also results in a much cheaper final product which does the same job qualitatively and quantitatively as a more expensive complexly engineered product.

Post Disaster Scenario :

Loss of Life and livelihood
Lives at stake , of those who survived Information and communication system jammed or crashed due to hardware losses Interrupted Power Supply

Need for an Information System during post disaster scenario :

Relief teams decide where to search for survivors
Assessing what basic supplies are needed to support the survivors Where to deliver them. It becomes very difficult for displaced families to be notified about their relative.

Implementation of a frugal Information System and its Requirements:

A system with basic capabilities and sufficient bandwidth. That meet the most pressing needs .
A basic communication tool most people possess.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
Definition Implication Utilities Advantages Constraints

A MOBILE PHONE , with a GSM SIM , working on Frequency as well as Time Division Multiplexing , that we can say as a basic communication tool most people possess .

(only

resource a survivor may have for communication)

Since, at a time of a calamity or a disaster most of the hardware devices running a cell phone crash down.

There comes a demand for external tool, which I call Emergency Server Station (ESS).

ESS is a hot air balloon controlled automatically or Manually. Left over a disaster struck area immediately after few hours, from a nearest take off point.

ESS is embedded with systems like :

Broadcast Antenna Point to Point Antennas Radar System Database Storage and Management System Micro programmed System

Emergency Server Station

Working of Emergency Server Station

Antennas :
ESS consisting with both type of antennas point to point as well as broadcast antennas. Broadcast a certain bandwidth of Frequency termed as Emergency Class Bandwidth (ECB)

Sending and receiving information to the other unaffected states Providing situation details to the relief teams
Linking the affected area with a satellite

Emergency Class Bandwidth (ECB)

Emergency Class Bandwidth (ECB) , will be inherited in each GSM SIM at the time of manufacturing. Will have a standard ringing number , called ECB number (A small form of 911 concept). The user with default operator can switch over to working ECB manually, only when an Emergency Server Station broadcasts a standard ECB. Thus, the new technology wont harm the profit as well as interest of mobile operators

Radar :
Due to Emergency class Bandwidth from ESS, any mobile phone in a Disaster affected area can call on a broadcasting frequency. The system is so designed that after first three seconds a beep will sound . After first 30 seconds the ring would automatically cut out providing the radar with a callers latitude and longitude.

Latitude and longitude will be further transferred via antennas for sending information to the relief teams

Database Storage System :

The calling mobile no. will be identified and stored on a Database system installed on Emergency Server Station . Exactly after first three seconds a beep will sound to confirm the user that the calling no. has been added to database including time of call. The Database information will be continuously transmitted to satellite station, non effected area and relief teams providing there stats to their families Displaced Families also avail an advantage through installed Database system. As soon as one calls to a misplaced family member, and if that no. to which one calls is already stored in Database (by similar process of calling on ECB no. and storage of personal no. storage after 3 seconds) , the ring on ECB no. will beep as a notifier straight after 10 seconds

3330s

3s

Via ECB

CONSTARINTS :
Since the entire research is concerned over Frugal Information System ,the ESS is limited to a certain bandwidth that dont allow , point to point phone calls and direct communication medium , to minimize power consumption. The battery life of mobile phone is the whole sole responsibility of the user, but since the Emergency Case Bandwidth is integrated with a GSM SIM , a mere SIM can come in handy to provide individual location and Database entry, even with different mobile phone

Installing Emergency Class Bandwidth with default bandwidth of the service provider on each GSM SIM , must be made mandatory by Government for making the Emergency Server Station globalised for every SIM and server provider.

CONCLUSION
In summary, I propose

Use what people already have, cell phones, as the foundation. Unfamiliar devices especially prepared for disasters were not used. Governments should invest in the resources to create quickly the infrastructure to sustain a frugal IS. The public and private sectors must collaborate to ensure the effective integration of the government disaster infrastructure and privately owned mobile devices.