A newly published road map from the Public Safety Communications Research group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology looks at the potential rewards and challenges associated with the use of location-based services in the public safety realm. It is the first such roadmap for public safety communications research.
With the ongoing planning for a national public safety LTE network, as well as the Federal Communications Commission’s activity in relation to emergency 911 mandates and stricter requirements for indoor location of callers on cellular phones, cellular systems are becoming more central to the communications needs of first responders.
Here are the top takeaways from the roadmap for public safety LBS use:
1. There is a long timeline in mind here. Although PSCR notes that it is heavily involved in short-term research and development for the public safety community, this roadmap looks at what PSCR expects to affect public safety location technologies over the next 20 years, during which PSCR expects that public safety “will simultaneously face unprecedented challenges and be presented with paradigm-shifting technologies.” PSCR anticipates that within that time period there will be a migration of data, video and eventually voice communications from land mobile radio to LTE, as well as the emergence of a more robust “Internet of Things” ecosystem and “5G.”
2. This is the first of a number of roadmaps that PSCR intends to develop on how various telecom technologies can be tailored to meet public safety needs. Future roadmaps include analytics and user interface/user experience, among others.
3. The report resulted in 19 potential research projects that outline gaps in current technologies, which could be tackled by state or federal agencies or by industry. These focused on three areas: software and applications; devices; and networks. PSCR noted that the project list is not exhaustive, but intended to indicate “initial steps that would help make LBS more operationally viable for the public safety community.” Those research projects include driving LBS fundamentals for indoor route planning; better location accuracy, including in the vertical plane; and contextual activity recognition, among others.
4. There are a number of areas for potential industry collaboration, including with companies exploring “smart home” technologies, wearables and augmented reality, and tech companies that are developing indoor maps. Analytics, interoperability, APIs and other areas of interest in the NIST report also represent potential areas for collaboration or research.
5. Multiple wireless technologies are expected to ultimately play into public safety LBS, from satellite positioning technologies such as GPS and GNSS; cellular systems; terrestrial beacons; and short-range technologies.
6. Public safety agencies will have to consider a number of factors in LBS adoption, including how it will affect training and staffing; policies for the use of such technologies; funding; identifying clear benefits; and the extent of their legal authority related to the information involved, in both pilot projects and adoption initiatives.
7. PSCR sees several key trends that are impacting public safety in relation to LBS and other technologies: shrinking budgets at all levels of government; a trend toward regionalization of emergency response; the impact of social media, mobile applications, and citizen reporting on how public safety agencies operate; and the impact of the “secondary responder community” such as utilities, sanitation and emergency aid organizations.
8. NIST is going to have significant funding to invest in public safety communications research. About $300 million from the most recent spectrum auction, is designated by law to go to NIST for public safety-related research – so the agency will have the funding to explore public safety telecom research as it develops additional roadmaps over the next few years. PSCR said that it developed the public safety LBS roadmap first “because it demonstrated high leveragability, feasibility, impact and return on investment to the public safety community,” all of which are primary factors in prioritizing research efforts.
The full PSCR report (NIST Technical Note 1883) is available as a pdf download via this page.
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