The system is intended to maintain communications even during a large-scale, prolonged power outage, when mobile network base stations stop working, Militarnyi reported.
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Meshcore is a network of small private radio devices and transmitters powered by batteries and solar panels. It enables communication without relying on cellular networks. Users connect the devices to smartphones via Bluetooth and communicate through an app, while standalone repeaters extend the network’s coverage.
The Municipality of Aarhus launched the pilot project in eastern Denmark. The municipality is centered on Aarhus, the country’s second-largest city.
Kristian Risager Larsen, head of the IT team at the Municipality of Aarhus’s Department of Innovation, Technology and Creativity (ITK), told the outlet that the project aims to determine whether Meshcore can be used for emergency communications.
“The pilot project is intended to determine whether we can send messages to local schools during an emergency, informing them how long it will last, where to get drinking water and so on, if all other means of communication fail,” he said.
Although the Municipality of Aarhus wants to test Meshcore, private individuals have developed the network so far. Dennis Borup Jakobsen, head of the municipality’s ITK Tech Lab unit, maintains the Meshview.dk website in his spare time. He estimates that the network has around 400 users in Denmark, but stresses that the figure is not precise.
