Enhancing Evacuation Safety: Detecting Post-Nuclear Event Radiation Levels in an Urban Area

Abstract: The detonation of an improvised nuclear device (IND) in an urban area would cause catastrophic damage, followed by hazardous radioactive fallout. Timely dissemination of radiation data is crucial for evacuation and casualty reduction. However, conventional communication infrastructure is likely to be severely disrupted. This study designs and builds a pseudorealistic, geospatially and temporally dynamic post-nuclear event (PNE) scenario using the Opportunistic Network Environment (ONE) simulator. It integrates radiation sensing by emergency responders, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and civilian devices as dynamic nodes within Delay-Tolerant Networks (DTNs). The performance of two DTN routing protocols, Epidemic and PRoPHET, was evaluated across multiple PNE phases. Both protocols achieve high message delivery rates, with PRoPHET exhibiting lower network overhead but higher latency. Findings demonstrate the potential of DTN-based solutions to support emergency response and evacuation safety by ensuring critical radiation data propagation despite severe infrastructure damage.