The researchers of Flinders University, Adelaide, have developed a mobile communication system, which does not require any towers.
According to the researchers, the 2010 Haiti earthquake in which the phone network crashed and infrastructure collapsed stimulated the Serval Project.
The earthquake that destroyed almost everything in Haiti showed the lack of flexibility in any communication systems which relied on infrastructure mainly. Creator Paul Gardner-Stephen said
“If the towers are knocked out, mobile phone handsets become useless lumps of plastic in our hands,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted him as saying.
“The Serval Project has proven that there is no reason for that to be the case,” he added.
Whether network cover exists or not their process named ‘the Serval project’ is allowing cell phones to communicate with each other to make a virtual network. Moreover, the Serval system could also offer a limited phone network for distant communities.
For making the technology a verified concept to the product level, Dr Gardner-Stephen has recently received a 400,000-dollar fellowship from the Shuttle worth Foundation.
The researchers hope to have free software available to the common people within a year.
