HRD Programme for Exchange of ICT Researchers and Engineers

Project Title:

Emergency Broadband Access Network using Low Altitude Platform Station for Disaster Relief in Indonesia

Chief Researcher

Hariyo Santoso

Bandung, July 31, 2009

PROJECT COMPLETION REPORT

HRD Programme for Exchange of ICT Researchers and Engineers

Project Title Emergency Broadband Access Network using Low Altitude Platform Station for Disaster Relief in Indonesia Executive Summary This project is aimed to develop and do trial of low altitude platform station (LAPS) as part of emergency broadband access network (EBAN) for disaster relief in Indonesia. This project has been selected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan and APT as HRD Programme for Exchange of ICT Researchers and Engineers. The commenced of the project is on December 3, 2008 and should be completed by the end of July 2009. The total budget approved for the project is USD 55,459.00. In general, the project achievement has fulfilled the initial project plan, both in the project results and time/budget consideration. The main activities for this HRD programme for exchange researchers are developing a prototype of the EBAN system using LAPS, as well as performing a field trial of the system. The actual cost of the project is USD 55,238.75 or 99.60% of the budget approved by APT. The exchange program between Japanese and Indonesian researchers has also met the project objectives, especially in enhancing their ICT competencies and adding their project experiences. Several input and lessons learned have also been considered for further development and implementation of this EBAN system. In the field trial, team has made some measurements regarding the EBAN system. The measurements include time to deploy the platform, attitude characteristic of the platform, strength of the signal, coverage area and also duty cycle of the system. 1. Project Information

1.1 Introduction This project has been selected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) of Japan and Asia-Pacific Telecommunity as an APT Collaborative HRD Programme for Exchange of ICT Researchers and Engineers. This project commenced on December 3, 2008 and should be completed at the end of July 2009. The total budget approved for the project is USD 55,459.00.

PROJECT COMPLETION REPORT

The main activities for this HRD programme for exchange researchers are to develop and do trial of low altitude platform station (LAPS) as part of emergency broadband access network (EBAN) for disaster relief in Indonesia. This research project is conducted by, Research & Development Center (RDC) of PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk. (TELKOM), and fully supported by researchers from: a. Institut Teknologi Telkom (IT Telkom – Telkom Institute of Technology) –

Indonesia b. Asosiasi Satelit Indonesia (ASI – Indonesian Sattelite Association) – Indonesia c. University of Electro-Communications (UEC) – Japan d. National Institute of Communications and Informations Technology (NICT) – Japan The researchers involved in this project are 6 (six) Indonesian researchers and 5 (five) Japanese researchers.

1.2 Objectives The objectives to aim in this project are: - Design a low altitude wireless broadband station for emergency situation

considering the ease-to-use platform (hot air balloon) and BWA technology (wimax/wifi) to deliver video, voice and internet services.

- Study the performance & coverage characteristics of the chosen BWA technology due to platform mobility and atmospheric disturbance in Indonesia

- Analyze the applicability of the proposed model as a deployable platform station for emergency response.

- Improve the application required for emergency relief. - Improve the user experience (ie. emergency team) in using communication system

for emergency response. With those, output of the project is expected as follows: - The EBAN system is expected to help Indonesian’ emergency team to get initial

image/video report from the sky about the affected area and provide scheduled communication solution connecting the field team and the EBAN communication center.

- Indonesia emergency team is able to explore various communication services and applications vary from video, image, data internet and voice services provided by EBAN system.

- A comprehensive study report of LAPS-based WiMAX (1-5 km) covers the coverage characteristics, performance, application and deployment scenarios.

1.3 Project Team This research project is conducted by TELKOM-RDC, a Research & Development Center of PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk., and fully supported by researchers from: a. Institut Teknologi Telkom (IT Telkom – Telkom Institute of Technology) –

Indonesia b. Asosiasi Satelit Indonesia (ASI – Indonesian Sattelite Association) – Indonesia c. University of Electro-Communications (UEC) – Japan d. National Institute of Communications and Informations Technology (NICT) – Japan

The researchers involved in this project are 6 (six) Indonesian researchers and 5 (five) Japanese researchers, as follows:

No. Name Institution Position in EBAN Project 1. Hariyo Santoso TELKOM Project Manager/Chief

Researcher 2. Daduk Merdika TELKOM Researcher 3. Hadi Hariyanto TELKOM Secretary/Researcher 4. Sony Ari Yuniarto TELKOM Accounting

Coordinator/Researcher 5. Anggoro K Widiawan ASI Researcher 6. Heroe Wijanto BPPT Researcher 7. Prof. Toshizumi OHTA UEC Researcher 8. DR. Hirohiko Suwa UEC Researcher 9. Andri Qiantori UEC Researcher 10. Agung Budi S UEC Researcher 11. DR. Ken UMENO NICT Researcher

2. Summary of the Financial Statement

Summary of the financial statement is described in the following table: Item Budget Approved (USD) Cost Spent(USD) Variance (USD) Travel Expenses 13,646.00 16,964.02 (3,318.02) Daily Allowances 18,788.00 7,936.92 10,851.08 Correspondence Expenses

75.00 0.00 75.00

Shipping Fees + Misc

200.00 0.00 200.00

Equipment Purchase Expenses

22,750.00 30,337.81 (7,587.81)

Total 55,459.00 55,238.75 220.25

- Fund transferred by APT (phase-1) = USD 33,275.40 - Cost spent until July 2009 = USD 55,238.75 - Total Current Balance = USD 21,963.35 The detailed information of this financial statement is described in the Final Accounting Report.

3. Brief Overview of EBAN System To create the system as a solution for emergency broadband access network, team considers some ideas, which are: - Team has to think the technology or system that is available and popular in Indonesia.

With this, team won't have any difficulty in buying the equipment to build the solution. - Identify the potential problem in early stage, to minimize the possibility that the solution

can't fulfill the objectives. - In the trial, team agrees to do data collection using measurement device. These data will

be analyzed to get the result regarding the test of the system. - In the end, team will come up with trial report.

With the considerations, team compares all technologies that is available to be implemented as part of the solution. For the platform station, we choose low altitude using balloon because of this analysis:

For the platform communication, we have some alternatives to be choosen: - Access Solution: providing broadband communication services for emergency/relief

team from the air o Alternative I: WiMAX Point-to-Multipoint based on 802.16d Standard o Alternative II: Outdoor WiFi providing Point-to-Multipoint connectivity for

WiFi terminal or group of WiFi ad-hoc Access Points in the ground - Backhaul and Ground Station Solution, providing broadband communication link from

Ground Station to the over-the-air EBAN system. o It is a point-to-point wireless link with the range vary from 10 – 30 km (depend

on the target mission and scenario) o The ground station is a deployable vehicle providing:

The wireless link to the air platform Platform and communication network management system VSAT IP from GS to the Internet backbone via satellite comm

Some comparison between Wifi and Wimax as our reference: For access communication, this table shows us the comparison between those two technologies:

For backhaul communication, this is the table:

a. Network Configuration System configuration developed in this project is illustrated as follow:

Platform station: - Theatered blimp (non-autonomous system) Communication Solution: - On Board Platform: WiFi dual band 2.4 GHz / 5.8 GHz - On Ground: WiFi CPE or Access Point, WiFi adhoc Network may be used in the edge

of the cell to extend the coverage (optional) - Backhaul: WiFI 5.8 GHz And WiMAX 3.3 GHz - Deployable ground station: VSAT IP, Application Server, Network & Platform

Monitoring b. Applications/services For the applications that will be deployed on top of the communication network, we have selected 3 applications, which are: - Video streaming app is intended for use in single or multi-camera video. It supports

capture, recording, and monitoring of video data coming from one or more video attached at balloon platform. Ease of use (web based app – GUI) and support motion picture standard MPEG-4.

- Voice communication app: support max flexibility, interoperable with many telephony protocol and support standards based telephony equipment. Can be implemented using relatively inexpensive hardware (for server or client). For optional client tool using softphone.

- Emergency Medical Care Information System (EMCIS). Utilize early captured data as an input for the EMCIS to provide medical advice. This application use graphical view on client UI.

4. Summary of the project activities

4.1 General Project Activities All researchers involved in this project, both researchers from Indonesia and Japan, actively supported all project activities. Some activities were virtually held via email, via telephone line and other activities required a physical attendance of the researchers (exchange of researchers). In general, all main activities of the project complied with the initial planning. Although some activities required a slight time adjustment, the project closing itself was exactly similar to the proposed plan, which is July 31, 2009. The detailed description about project activities is summarized in the following table.

Plan Actual No Activity

Schedule Place Schedule Place Description

1. Kick off Project

10/1/2008 Bandung 12/5/2008 Bandung This meeting was held in RDC-TELKOM, Bandung and attended by 6 Indonesian researchers. Japanese researcher gave their comments and discussion via email and yahoo messenger.

2. System Specification Analysis

10/2/2008 to 10/11/2008

Bandung 12/6/2008 to 12/15/2008

Bandung The output of this activity is the system specification document (described in Annex-1). This document is used as reference in making the system design document.

3. H/W, S/W & Network Procurement

10/28/2008 to 11/17/2008

Bandung 4/2/2009 to 5/20/2009

Bandung Defining and assessing some tool/equipment will be used for development and trial. The procurement has been done in Bandung, and some of the tools have been used for the development of the system. List of tools/ equipment procured / rented from this project are: - Balloon platform - Hydrogen - Wifi system - Server - Balloon accessories

4. Survey location

10/12/2008 to 10/27/2008

Bandung 1/20/2009 to 2/2/2009

Bandung To help the implementation, we’ve been coordinating with Sulaeman airport authority, who runs day to day operational in the area. Location implementation has already been visiting also, as a preliminary survey activity, to see the possibilities to launch the platform.

5. Network Design/ System Planning & Design

11/18/2008 to 12/8/2008

Bandung 2/3/2009 to 3/13/2009

Bandung/ Tokyo

The output of this activity is system requirement document. All team members of this project finalized this draft in Tokyo on March 4-13, 2009. (Described in Annex-2)

6. Software Dev.

Design 12/9/2008 to 12/19/2008

Bandung 3/14/2009 to 3/24/2009

Bandung The activity for designing the applications to be deployed in EBAN system. Japanese expert also gave

inputs to complete the system's design.

Coding 12/20/2008 to 1/31/2009

Bandung 3/25/2009 to 4/10/2009

Bandung This activity intended to write the software based on the design document developed previously.

Testing 2/1/2009 to 2/21/2009

Bandung 4/11/2009 to 4/13/2009

Bandung This activity covered functional test of the modules, especially investigating the flow of the software.

SW Integra-tion

2/22/2009 to 3/9/2009

Bandung 4/14/2009 to 4/15/2009

Bandung Integrating all software modules before they are deployed on the platform.

SW Documentation

3/10/2009 to 3/25/2009

Bandung 4/15/2009 to 5/15/2009

Bandung Creating technical documentations for EBAN system by using related software engineering standard.

7. Hardware Integrating

3/26/2009 to 5/1/2009

Bandung 5/1/2009 to 5/11/2009

Bandung Installed all the components (wifi for access, wifi for backbone and balloon platform) before they are used in the field.

8. Installation/ System Testing

6/3/2009 to 6/18/2009

Bandung 5/12/2009 to 5/15/2009

Bandung Installed the system in the field and also doing some testing to make sure that the system is running properly.

9. Field Trial 6/19/2009 to 7/19/2009

Bandung 5/15/2009 to 6/30/2009

Bandung All Indonesian researchers present in the opening of EBAN system field trial and also doing some test to try the capability. They agree that the system is stable and ready for trial. All team performed the trial for about 2 weeks in 2 phases.

10. Closing 8/6/2009 Bandung 7/31/2009

Bandung This activity was also viewed as the formal project closing of this research project.

4.2 Exchange Activities 4.2.1 Exchange Activities in Tokyo - Japan From March 4, 2009 until March 13, 2009, 6 (six) Indonesian researchers have visited Tokyo to do exchange activity for this APT project. This activity was hosted by The University of Electro-Communications (UEC) and by National Institute of Communication Technology (NICT). The summary of this exchange activities are as follow:

- In the UEC – Japan o Discuss about system design with Prof. Toshizumi Ohta. He gave input to

the implementation of system, specific for applications deployed in the network, that those should have great impact especially for the disaster's victim.

o Met with president of UEC, Prof. Makoto Kajitani, to report the project activity.

o Finalizing the document design of the system. - Study visit/consultation

During exchange activities in Japan, the team member had visited some institutions for gathering information and discussion regarding similar implementation of the system, to be implemented in disaster area. Those institutions are:

o Keio University, on March 10, 2009. In this meeting team discussed the concept of the system regarding implementation similar system in Japan.

Team from Keio University presented their projects about School on Internet (SOI) Asia project, Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE) project and LifeLine Station project. The last one is similar project with EBAN but it differed in the communication and platform technology.

o Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), on March 11, 2009. In this meeting team discussed the concept of the system spesific for satelite communication. Mr. Higuchi from JAXA presented his projects about Wideband InterNetworking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite (WINDS) project and Sentinel Asia project.

The team got a lot of information regarding the satellite communication system in Japan and planned to use the knowledge as reference to develop EBAN system using LAPS.

4.2.2 Exchange Activity in Indonesia Exchange activity for this APT project was held in Indonesia and hosted by TELKOM-RDC on June 21 – 25, 2009. Some activities that is done during the visit: a. Installation and Field Trial

On May, team installed all system at Sulaeman Airport and after that continues with the trial. In phase 2 of the trial, Japanese researchers (Prof. Ohta, DR. Suwa, Mr. Andri and Mr. Agung) were involved in this activity. They collaborated with Indonesian researchers to do the measurement and arranged the point of interest.

b. Meeting and Presentation Prof. Ohta gave a general presentation about next generation of socio informatics in front of project team member and also management in TELKOM-RDC. In the presentation he mentioned that the project will contribute a lot in the development of next generation socio informatics, especially in disaster area.

4.3 Project Member Substitution To comply with time arrangement for implementing the system and also considering the environment needed to do the trial, team agreed to change the location of the implementation to small airport near Bandung city. Because the system need to be lifted up to the air up to 500m height, team needs to find the environment that is wide open and also the permission from local authority to launch something to theair. Other adjustment is for team member. Team change 2 members of the project and add 1 new member. We change from DR. Iskandar to Mr. Heroe Wijanto because DR. Iskandar is not available to joint with the project. For Mr. Mikio Suzuki, team substitute him with DR. Ken Umeno, because Mr. Mikio Suzuki is no longer in NICT. And for additional team member, team add DR. Hirohiko Suwa to assist in spesific social IT matter. This is the change resume:

Name of Researchers Name of Organizations/Institutions

DR. Iskandar (Researcher)

Lecturer Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia

Change to Heroe Wijanto (Researcher)

Lecturer Institut Teknologi Telkom (ITT), Indonesia

Name of Researchers Name of Organizations/Institutions

Mikio Suzuki (Researcher)

Senior researcher National Institute of Communications and Informations Technology (NICT), Japan

Change to DR. Ken Umeno (Researcher)

Senior researcher National Institute of Communications and Informations Technology (NICT), Japan

And additional team member:

Name of Researchers Name of Organizations/Institutions DR. Hirohiko Suwa (Researcher)

Research Associate University of Electro-Communication

5. Project Deliverable/Outputs

5.1 EBAN System There are 2 main sub systems that are needed to build complete EBAN solution. First is communication platform. This platform consists of two parts, backhaul communication part and access communication part. For both parts, team used wifi technology as the solution, but works in different frequency. For backhaul, the frequency is 5.8 GHz and for access is 2.4 GHz. Second sub system is the balloon platform, which is used as low altitude platform station. To maintain the stability and height of the platform, team used two balloons connected with 2 meters hub and tethered using ropes. Each balloon has diameter about 6 meters, thus both can lift payload up to 40 kg to 500 m height. This solution is ideal considering the coverage up to 24 km diameter, which is large enough to covers the communication system with broadband capability.

5.2 Enhancement of HRM Competency All researchers involved in this project have obtained some advantages to improve their technical capabilities and project experiences, especially in scope of low altitude platform station. And also the team got the experience on how to deal with people, especially whom are not related to IT in their daily activities.

6. Field Trial

In order to examine the EBAN system and to get some data from the measurement, team performed the field trial of the system. The project trial is done in Sulaeman Airport, which is one non-operational airport in Bandung, operates by Indonesian air force. After completion the project, all team members consider to continue the research of the system, to enhance the capability and stability.

6.1 Objectives The main objectives of the project trial are: • Examining the performance of EBAN system. • Performing system testing, including functional tests, response time and stability of

the EBAN system. • Doing measurement to get the data of stability, performance, duty cycle and other

related factors.

6.2 Schedule of the EBAN Trial The EBAN system project trial was held on May 15 to June 30, 2009. The trial is divide into two phases, 1 week on May and other on June. During the trial all team members performed functional and stability test to make sure that EBAN system is ready to act as a communication platform. To get some data, team using measurement device to capture the traffic that flow from user device to access point in balloon platform. In second phase of the trial, Japanese team jointed to do measurement and also gave the suggestions to get more accurate data.

6.3 Place of Trial Place of trial is mainly in Bandung, in Sulaeman Airport. Sulaeman airport is one of airports in Bandung, operates by Indonesian air force. This airport is not use as a commercial airport, because the location is near to the public’s house. Regularly, the airport is used as a landing area for parachute trainee.

6.4 System Configuration of the Trial Based on the original system configuration, we modified a little bit, so the connection from satellite goes direct to the internet, where the measurement was done by accessing the content from internet.

6.5 Trial Analysis Summary Based on the trial, the summary analysis of the system is as follow:

• Assumptions: - Antenna model: ITU envelope model for Patch Antenna with max gain

of 6 dBi. - Transmit level of 26 dBm.

Using those assumptions, team summarize the result as follows

• PDF of EBAN attitude

Internet

• Plot of received signal level prediction

• PDF of received signal level prediction

• CDF of received signal level prediction

• Coverage of EBAN System

The detail analysis can be read in the separate document, attach in Annex-2 Document Analysis of EBAN.

7. Impacts of the EBAN Project Some advantages of the EBAN system are:

For team member: Some advantages for the team are: a. Having a simple, easy, fast deployment, and in-expensive communication system for

emergency/disaster area with broadband capability, provides video, voice and data communications.

b. Using general CPE with wifi capability to connect to the system. But there is a repeater needed to strengthen the signal.

c. New experience for the team to research new communication platform that can be implemented in the air using low altitude platform station.

d. With the system, there is wide-open possibility for others to create service and content, specific for disaster area.

For Non-Government Organization Some advantages for NGO are:

a. The system will be part of the bigger system as a solution for disaster area, especially for broadband implementation.

b. To show the government of Indonesia, that there is new platform, which is low altitude platform station, that can carry communication system in the air to serve for restricted area.

c. The system is stable enough as a data carrier, thus many application can be served include video and real time communication.

8. Project Sustainability In order to ensure the continuity of the project, all team members have considered continuing the research of EBAN system. Some efforts to ensure the sustainability of the implementation of EBAN system are:

• Improvement of the EBAN system based on the trial measurement; such as enhance the stability of the platform, improvement of the antenna and securing the communication part to avoid fraud.

• Implement application that is needed most for disaster victims, for example victim management, video streaming application and voice over IP. These applications should be light and very easy to use.

In addition, the EBAN system is very needed as a completion part of disaster management system to ensure that communication part can be implemented very easy and fast. So the sustainability of the implementation of the system based on the market need is very promising. 9. Lesson Learned Some lessons learned from this project are as follow:

a. The implementation of IT is very important for human being, not only for people live in the city, but also in the disaster area. And we realized that the distribution of IT knowledge is not equal in every area. Because of that, IT related project should be developed gradually in more areas.

b. Collaboration among researchers from some different locations can be effectively accomplished electronically via both Internet and telecommunication facilities.

c. Intensive coordination between team members, non-government organization and also people is very needed to make sure that the implementation of the system is running well.

d. The problems/limitations of this limited EBAN trial may be in the area of: o Stability of the balloon platform for a specific height, where there is strong wind

can happen anytime.

o Client CPE for wifi. Because for long-range distance, regular CPE can not be used, because of signal strength can not reach the station.

o Security of the system during internal communication, where there can be fraud during the connection.

o Lack of team’s knowledge about low altitude platform station technology, especially this is the first trial for that.

10. Future Plan

a. All team members consider to do further research regarding low altitude platform station and communication system, that can give more stable solution from interruption of wind, whether and flying living (bug, bird).

b. In future implementation team agree to collaborate with non-government organization that has task as a disaster work force. In this collaboration, EBAN system will be used as a main solution to solve communication problem between center of coordination and team in the field.

c. This model of low altitude platform station is the first research in this area, thus team consider to publish the result in the national and international forum, to get the input to enhance the system and also get opportunity for wide implementation.

11. Annexes

a. Annex-1: Document Requirement of EBAN b. Annex-2: Document Analysis of EBAN c. Annex-3: Photo Documentations

Final Report EBAN Project

TELKOM-RDC 19

Annex-1

Document Requirement of EBAN

Final Report EBAN Project

TELKOM-RDC 35

Annex-2

Document Analysis of EBAN

Final Report EBAN Project

TELKOM-RDC 70

Annex-3

Photo Documentations