R&D and Societal Activities at the NICT Resilient ICT
Research Center— Focusing on wireless infrastructure technologies —Yoiti Suzuki

Toshiaki Kuri

Director General
Resilient ICT Research Center
National Institute of Information andCommunications Technology

Director
Applications Laboratory
Resilient ICT Research Center
National Institute of Information andCommunications Technology

Yasunori Owada

Tsutomu Nagatsuma

Senior Researcher
Applications Laboratory
Resilient ICT Research Center
National Institute of Information andCommunications Technology

1. Introduction
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is thefoundation of daily activity in society. If we think of the electricity
grid and distribution networks playing the same role as blood in
the human body, ICT plays the role of the nervous system andbrain. With the arrival of the age of the Internet of Things (IoT)
and cyber-physical systems, this role will expand and increase inimportance.
However, with the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011,
there was extensive damage to communication networks, causing
life-threatening delays in obtaining information regarding thedamage, as well as causing major difficulty conveying informationsuch as the well-being of survivors and obtaining daily necessities.
Learning from this experience, research and development toimprove resilience of data communication networks was started,with a third revision to the 2011 MIC budget. Then, in April,2012, the National Institute of Information and Communications
Technology (NICT), Resilient ICT Research Center was
established in Sendai City. It was organized for collaboration
among industry, academia and government, to promote initiatives
in resilient ICT R&D and their implementation in society. In
2014, a building for the center was completed on the KatahiraCampus of Tohoku University. Tohoku University has the
Research Institute of Electrical Communication, which wasestablished in 1935, the Graduate School of Engineering and the
Graduate School of Information Sciences, so there is much active
research related to ICT. After the earthquake, it also established
the Research Organization of Electrical Communication,gathering faculty with a desire for resilient ICT research.
Initiatives at the Resilient ICT Research Center promote
fundamental and applied research on resilient ICT and its
implementation in society, to maximize the contribution of theresults of such R&D to society. The Planning and Collaboration
Promotion Office collaborates with laboratories within andoutside of the Center, promotes collaboration with external

Director
Planning and Collaboration Promotion Office
Resilient ICT Research Center
National Institute of Information andCommunications Technology

research organizations, including those in Tohoku University,and works to establish a network among industry, academia andgovernment. It also promotes demonstration and use during
real disasters, of resilient ICT research results arising throughrelated collaboration among industry, academia and government,
including disaster preparedness exercises, and implementation ofresearch results in society through symposia and exhibitions.
This article gives an overview of recent R&D results, focusing
on resilient ICT infrastructure technologies, and demonstrations
and other initiatives to implement them in society.

2. Resilient ICT research at the Resilient ICT
Research Center
The Center has two laboratories in which it conducts resilient
ICT R&D: The Infrastructure Laboratory has the Optical
Networks project, and the Applications Laboratory has the
Wireless Communication Applications project and the Real-TimeSocial Knowledge Analysis project.
2.1 Infrastructure Laboratory
Optical networks use low-loss optical fiber to realize longdistance, high-capacity communication, so they are used forwide-area core networks. Before, during and after large-scaledisasters, optical networks should be able to switch smoothly
among redundant optical network resources to mitigate majorcongestion, and to quickly establish emergency optical networks
to satisfy various communication requirements in disaster areas.
We are conducting R&D on the technologies for an elastic opticalswitching platform and emergency recovery of optical networks.
When a large-scale disaster occurs, due to the increased
communication requirements into and out of the affected regions,congestion will happen in wide-area networks. The goal ofelastic optical switching technology is to establish fundamental
technologies enabling dynamic reconfiguration, in the spectral
domain and the time domain, to avoid congestion when

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a disaster occurs, making the optical network infrastructure
more resilient. We have optimized the processing in an opticalpower equalization system for acousto-optic devices, making it
possible to maintain transmission quality with stable response
times when the power changes due to optical switching. To
realize interconnection with heterogeneous traffic, we have also
worked on the data plane of integrated optical networks: we haveconducted R&D on interconnection between integrated optical
networks and different transport networks such as MPLS, Ether,
OpenFlow, and IP. For the control/management plane, we havefocused R&D on orchestration technology for interconnection.
These technologies enable services delivering traffic crossing
over the integrated optical networks and different transport
networks during normal times. In addition, during disasters
and emergencies, the integrated optical networks (as the core
networks) can be employed to relay different types of traffic forthe disconnected MPLS, Ether, OpenFlow and IP networks,
resulting in quick restoration of communications.
In R&D on emergency recovery of optical networks, we aredeveloping a self-healing control-system technology using multifunction recovery support tools to facilitate rapid emergency
recovery of optical networks near a disaster area when opticalfiber communications is interrupted. We are also collaboratingwith enterprise to develop technology for creating and utilizing
a temporary shared packet transport network between carriers,
implementing automated control without leaking confidential
carrier information. Based on this research, we are conducting
R&D on carrier-collaboration platform technology that will
enable carriers to cooperate during disaster, sharing surviving
communication-facility resources with each other. We implement
third-party mediation that incentivizes collaboration between
carriers (mutual provision of optical path support, balancing of
repair tasks), promoting R&D and collaboration that will advancedisaster recovery. During a disaster, this platform will make itpossible to set a concrete collaboration plan between carriers,
including sharing of optical path resources and allocating repair
tasks among each other by matching supply and demand forresources.
Since FY2018, we have also been conducting R&D on
disaster-resiliency strategies for next-generation metro optical
networks under the Joint Japan-US Network Opportunity 2(JUNO2) project. In this research, we are conducting R&D on arobust telemetry technology that can quickly rebuild lost optical
network functions of monitoring and telemetry during disaster,using a temporary control and management planes establishedwith various access methods, such as private mesh networks, 4G,
satellite and the Internet. We are conducting trials of telemetryfunctions that gather monitoring data using open APIs andprotocols, and verifying that network management systems canbe notified and quickly gain a global view of network conditions,even with limited and unstable bandwidth, prioritizing important
information appropriately.

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2.2 Applications Laboratory
This laboratory promotes the Wireless Communication
Applications Project, which conducts R&D on network utilization
technology to guarantee information-f low requirements inenvironments where network resources are limited, and theReal-time Social Knowledge Analysis Project, which conducts
R&D on technology to obtain necessary disaster information by
analyzing disaster-related social knowledge on Social Network
Services (SNS) and to present it in a user-friendly form.
The next section introduces R&D on a network systemtechnology that the Wireless Communication Applications
Project has been actively working on recently, which can beused continuously even when public communication has beeninterrupted, and how this technology is being deployed in society.
A detailed report of work by the Real-time Social Knowledge
Analysis Project is also given in another article in this issue, titled“Disaster-prevention Initiatives using AI and Related Information
on SNS.”

3. R&D on network system technologies thatmaintain availability when public networks
are interrupted and promotion of results
We are conducting R&D on distributed network systemtechnologies that are resistant to interruption through selfmanagement, enabling both internal communication andapplication services to be maintained, and also facilitating
construction and expansion of networks. Municipalities such as
cities and towns are being required to respond quickly and withflexibility to various natural disasters that have been occurring
more frequently of late. In such conditions, the role of information
is extremely important for understanding conditions of the entire
disaster as they change from minute-to-minute, and for making
timely and appropriate decisions. However, as experienced withlarge-scale disasters such as the Great East Japan Earthquake,public telecommunications may not always be available due tocongestion or damage, so how to maintain the flow of informationeven under such conditions is an important key to facilitating
support efforts on the ground. One network system technology
being developed to maintaining information flow, introduced
below, is called “Die-hard Networks”[1]. Its objective is to enable
continuous disaster-response work, even between distant locations,by collecting information on servers distributed among vehicles
and facilities, and synchronizing that information between theservers using various communication channels that have different
characteristics.
3.1 Overview of Die-hard networks
3.1.1 Targeted functional elements
Die-hard networks were proposed and developed as a network
system technology that will enable workers to continue using
systems, even during disasters and under other conditions where
public communications are interrupted, and enable sharing ofinformation between various remote locations and organizations,maximizing utilization of limited means of communication.
Features of the technology are described below.
(1) Links between distributed on-premises systems
To enable on-site workers to continue their work under any
conditions, an autonomous distributed architecture was adopted.
Thus, there are no nodes that provide centralized systemmanagement and control, or provide services. Each node provides
application services and network control on-premises, and detects
and connects with other nodes with the same functionality.
This enables nodes to autonomously share and synchronize data
(document files, images, etc.) and other information with eachother, sharing it between distributed systems at different locations.
(2) Proactive use of mobile resources
Sharing of data as described above is performed in an eventdriven manner, when there are updates, or when connecting to
a new node. The system is designed using a database to manage
data, synchronizing data between nodes so that inconsistencies
do not occur. This enables each node to add and update data
independently, without assuming a constant connection with othernodes, sharing and synchronizing data between devices only whenmobile devices are nearby, and using them as a means of storing
and transporting information.
(3) Utilization of heterogeneous communication systems
The system implements functions that enable various
communication technologies for connections between nodes,
combining available means of communication and using themaccording to their various characteristics from the applicationlevel. For example, wireless local area networks (wireless LAN,
or “Wi-Fi”) are capable of relatively high capacity data exchange
when a mobile station is nearby, but the range is limited, and it canbe difficult to predict when a connection to which mobile station
will be possible, or when it will be disconnected. Conversely,communication with Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA) or
Convenience Radio is capable of broadcast and communication
over relatively longer distances, but has very low speed and is more
subject to data loss, so it is not suitable for image transmission
or other high-volume data exchange. Long Term Evolution(LTE) connections are capable of very stable, high-speed Internet
connections, but contracting mobile service providers only provide
private Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses, so IP address
resolution and direct communication is not possible between
nodes behind the NAT gateways, and data synchronizationmust be done through a cloud service with a global address.
The system implements Application Programming Interfaces(APIs) that enable proactive and efficient use of various meansof communication, according to their differing characteristics
as in the examples above (such as priority, real-time or not,data transmission capacity, broadcast, and single or full-duplex
communication) so that distributed, on-premises systems runningon nodes can maintain resilient links between each other.
(4) Authentication and access control in distributed environments

Information handled by local governments includes personal
information so free access by anyone cannot be permitted. As
such, connection to distributed on-premises systems on eachnode and access to data stored and managed within themmust be limited to users and through terminals that have beenauthenticated. Similar restrictions are also required between nodes
for communication between devices and connections throughLTE or the Internet. Die-hard Networks do not assume constantconnections between nodes or with the Internet, so authorization
to connect and access to information is also authenticated between
distributed nodes.
3.1.2 Die-hard Network node prototype
We have prototyped a Die-hard Network node. The prototype
node specifications are shown in the Table[1]. Under normal
circumstances the prototype node uses the mobile phone network(LTE data communication) and implements a mechanism that
automatically synchronizes data between each node and a node on
the cloud. Besides LTE, each node also has two Wi-Fi interfaces,with one operating as an access point using hostapd[2], and theother operating as a station using wpa_supplicant[3]. The Wi-Fi
access points can connect to other nodes and synchronize data,
but they are also used to accommodate smartphones, tablets andPCs used by disaster responders, and provide application services
to them.
The prototype node implements Fast Initial Link Setup(FILS) on wireless LAN based on the IEEE802.1ai standard[4],providing authentication server, Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) server and Wi-Fi access point functions, sothat they are operating on all nodes of the network. This enables
high-speed wireless LAN connections with user authenticationequivalent to Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) Enterprise. This
also allows for more data to be transferred between nodes during
the limited time available in scenarios when mobile nodes passeach other, or when mobile nodes pass near nodes in fixed stations.
Each node is also equipped with digital convenience radio■ Table: Prototype node specifications

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equipment, for long distance communication. This is used mainly
for transmitting control information between nodes, but when
the regular LTE connection is interrupted, it can also be used totransmit high priority application data (low volume text data). The
system is also designed so that Long Range (LoRa) and other IoT
radio communication devices can be added.
3.1.3 Application software
Application software running on the Die-hard network system
is implemented as Web server based applications[1]. Users are able
to enter and view information on the system using a Web browser
on a PC or smartphone connected to the system by Wi-Fi. The
system also implements APIs so that dedicated applications canbe developed to facilitate entry of information on a smartphone.
Thus, applications can be developed to use the system as requiredby users, such as: enabling registered users and devices to simplify
login to the system, updating information with photos attached,sharing location information for on-site workers, or distributing
audio information within groups like a transceiver.
3.2 Use of prototype node in disaster medical drills
The prototype was used in the comprehensive disaster
preparedness drill held in Kochi Prefecture on June 9, 2019. The
drill supposed conditions in which public communications werecompletely lost due to an earthquake in the Nankai Trough. As
in earlier drills, training was done using conventional meansof communication, such as administrative disaster prevention
radio systems. Specifically, this involved writing messages on
paper based on prefectural forms (e.g., reports from first-aid
stations to municipal disaster-response centers, status reports
from disaster response centers to prefectural medical coordination
office, requests to admit serious patients, and responses), andthen transmitting them by FA X. In parallel with this,prototype nodes were installed at the Kochi Prefecture Medical
Coordination office (Kochi Prefecture Central-East Health andWelfare Office), the Konan City Disaster Response Office (theFureai Center), and the emergency medical aid station (Konan
City, Akaoka Insurance Center). Drills were then conductedtransmitting the same information digitally, without paper, using
the prototype nodes with the LTE function disabled[5]. An
information transmission application developed for the drills was
installed on the prototype nodes, and a Die-hard Network system
was configured using several nodes. Figure 1 shows the locationsof each of the stations using the system in the drill, and theinformation transmitted.
With the system, text information entered in reports andrequests is automatically synchronized and shared by Digital
Convenience Radio with the municipal disaster response centeror the prefectural medical coordination center. At each location,a mechanism is implemented to automatically share such status
or authorization information by simply performing the approval
and authorization processes on the system. City and prefecture

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staffs participating in the drills were requested to use the system
and were able to perform the drill according to the prescribedscenarios. Screen shots of the applications used are shown in
Figures 2 and 3.
Beyond the scenarios of the drill, we also demonstrated storage
and transmission of information that cannot be transmitted using
prefecture forms, such as the status of critical patients in care at
the first-aid centers, and photographs of triage tags. Prototype
nodes on moving vehicles automatically synchronized information
through Wi-Fi, so photographic data stored on nodes at firstaid stations was automatically transmitted to the vehicle node,
and when the vehicle arrived at the parking lot of the medical
coordination center, the photographic data was automaticallytransmitted to nodes there. We confirmed that photos could
be displayed on PCs in the center. In this way, we verified thateven high-volume data that is difficult to transmit by Digital
Convenience Radio can be shared automatically, transported by
vehicle, when public telecommunications are interrupted.
■ Figure 1: Locations and information transmitted for eachlocation in drills■ Figure 2: Data transmission application screen(Status display screen for Requests/Approvals/
Reports)

■ Figure 3: Data input screen matching prefecture forms

These efforts have shown that this network system technology
is effective, providing continuous availability even when public
telecommunication systems are interrupted.
3.3 Future prospects
The Die-hard Network system described here is being
developed as a technology to provide a continuous means ofcommunication, to share information among aid workers active
on-site during disasters, and is being verified in disaster prevention
drills.
In the future, we will continue development of individual
technical elements necessary for Die-hard Networks, and build
them into the Disaster Prevention Information, Communicationand Management System in Konan City, Kochi Prefecture. We
will also link with the Shared Information Platform for Disaster
Management (SIP4D) system[6], create platform functionality thatcan be shared for various uses, improve extensibility, and expand
laterally so that it can also be used by other local governments anddisaster-response agencies.

4. Conclusion
Having learned lessons from the Great East Japan
Earthquake, the Resilient ICT Research Center is engaged in
R&D on ICT that is resilient in the face of earthquakes and otherlarge-scale disasters and is working to implement it in society. In
recent years, we have also frequently seen meteorological disasters

such as wind and water damage from typhoons, and sudden
and heavy “guerilla” rainstorms. Moreover, we have learned
that pandemics such as that resulting from COVID-19 have astrong impact to society, similar to large-scale disasters. ICT
must function properly in order to minimize damage to life andeconomy and to support repair and recovery. With developmentof ICT and in a society where every citizen is connected to the
network, we have entered an age that requires construction of
cyber-physical ICT social infrastructure that can support everyday
social systems and services, and is continuously maintained andoperating right through into times of disaster. To realize thisvision will require further R&D on technical systems that are, as
the word “resilient” indicates, both tougher and more flexible.
References[1] Y. Owada et al.: “Information Sharing System for Disaster Response Using Asynchronous
Opportunistic Communications Among Distributed Servers,” IEICE Tech. Rep., Vol. 120, No.
73, SeMI2020-2, pp. 7-12, June 2020.
[2] J . Malinen: “hostapd: IEEE 802.11 AP, IEEE 802.1X / WPA / WPA2/E AP/ RADIUS
Authenticator,” https://w1.fi/hostapd/, 2013.
[3] J. Malinen: “hostapd: Linux WPA/WPA2/IEEE 802.1XSupplicant,” https://w1.fi/wpa_
supplicant/, 2013.
[4] “IEEE Standard for Information technology-Telecommunications and information exchange
between systems Local and metropolitan area networks-Specific requirements-Part 11:
Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications,”
IEEE Std 802.11-2016, pp. 1-3534, doi: 10.1109/IEEESTD. 2016.7786995, Dec. 2016.
[5] “Trials conducted transmitting health and welfare information during disaster, without using
public telecommunications, in Kochi Prefecture Comprehensive Disaster Preparedness
Drills,” https://www.nict.go.jp/info/topics/2019/06/20-1.html, June 2019.
[6] “ Shared Information Platform for Disaster Management (SI P4D),” https://www.sip4d.jp/

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