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THE DESIGN OF A WIRELESS SOLAR-POWERED
ROUTER FOR RURAL ENVIRONMENTS ISOLATED
FROM HEALTH FACILITIES

FRANCISCO JAVIER SIMO REIGADAS AND ANDRES MARTINEZ FERNANDEZ,
UNIVERSIDAD REY JUAN CARLOS
PABLO OSUNA GARCIA, FUNDACION EHAS & FUNDACION RAFAEL ESCOLA
SILVIA LAFUENTE SANZ, FUNDACION EHAS & IDOM
JOAQUIN SEOANE PASCUAL, UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA DE MADRID

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ABSTRACT
Isolated rural areas often lack terrestrial
telecommunication networks, especially in developing
countries, which poses an important obstacle
for offering health assistance of acceptable
quality. On the other hand, low density and low
concentration of population, lack of electricity in
many areas, and accessibility problems make it
difficult to propose realistic solutions based on
conventional technologies. This work presents
the development of an autonomous solar-powered
wireless node for low-cost, static mesh networks.
IEEE 802.11 is used for communication
among nodes. The network is QoS-aware at the
IP level, providing reliable VoIP services, and
nodes contain a software PBX so that any two
nodes in the network can establish a multihop
VoIP communication.
INTRODUCTION
More than half of the population of the world
lives in isolated rural areas, out of the reach of
terrestrial telecommunication networks. This is
particularly true in developing countries, where
rural areas very often lack access to the public
telephone network or even to electricity. Low
density and low concentration of population
make it difficult to afford the installation of permanent
infrastructures that are expensive due to
typical restrictions in power service, accessibility,
maintainability, and security. Additionally, in
developing countries, rural communities are usually
extremely poor and cannot afford the cost of
services if they are too high