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Bridging Technical Capability and User Accessibility: Off-grid Civilian Emergency Communication

Karim Khamaisi, Oliver Kamer, Bruno Rodrigues, Jan von der Assen, Burkhard Stiller

ACM International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT) (venue) · Vienna, Austria, 18-21 November 2025 · 2025 · Best Paper Candidate (runner-up)

Preprint ACM
Figure from Bridging Technical Capability and User Accessibility: Off-grid Civilian Emergency Communication

When disaster takes down cell towers and the internet, people lose the ability to ask for help. This work builds a civilian emergency communication system that pairs LoRa long-range radio with a smartphone app to form an infrastructure-free mesh, adding public-key identity verification and role-based moderation so the channel stays trustworthy. Field-tested in Zurich, it reached about 1.2 km at a 92% packet delivery rate. Named a Best Paper Candidate at ACM IoT 2025, and later covered by Help Net Security.

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Cite this paper (BibTeX)
@inproceedings{khamaisi2025-offgrid,
  author    = {Karim Khamaisi and Oliver Kamer and Bruno Rodrigues and Jan von der Assen and Burkhard Stiller},
  title     = {{Bridging Technical Capability and User Accessibility: Off-grid Civilian Emergency Communication}},
  booktitle = {ACM International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT)},
  year      = {2025},
  address   = {Vienna, Austria},
  url       = {https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.22568}
}