Page 52 - FCW, August 2019

CaseStudy Folding new tech into
existing systems
NGFR is part of the nationwide Apex Program developed by DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate to help first responders stay safe, connected and informed during an emergency. The Alabama test will integrate tech- nologies developed by S&T and the private sector to fill nine gaps that public safety officials identified in their response capabilities. Those gaps include body-worn or handheld sensors, a search-and-rescue devel- opment tool, systems that can track first-responder locations indoors and outdoors, a situational awareness plat- form, a tool that can disseminate and analyze videos and images, and deploy- able communications systems.
In addition, Birmingham had been relying on the Active911 mobile plat- form for situational awareness, but it lacked the bandwidth necessary for the Shaken Fury experiment so officials will use PAR Government’s TEAM Con- nect instead.
Besides city and county first responders, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, Alabama Nation- al Guard and the state Department of Transportation will participate. The Federal Emergency Management Agen- cy will lead the Shaken Fury exercise. The participants will test a variety of new technologies, including internet- of-things devices, unmanned aerial sys- tems, stadium evacuation simulation tools, and situational awareness for responders and incident commanders.
A key challenge is integrating the new technologies with existing ones. That’s where open standards and open- source solutions come in, Speicher said, adding that city and county agen- cies should be able to adopt new tools without having to redesign what they already have.
“You’re never going to have an agen- cy that doesn’t have some amount of IT and existing systems,” he said. “We go in with a clean slate on how to archi-
tect and how to bring this new tech- nology into an existing system in an operationally impactful way, but obvi- ously we’ve got to do it with a very light touch in terms of any impact on their existing systems.”
DHS has led other Shaken Fury tests, most recently in Memphis, Tenn., in June. Previous exercises included a communications experiment in Boston in October 2016; a search-and-rescue scenario in June 2017 in Grant County, Wash.; and a hazmat scenario in Har- ris County, Texas, in December 2018.
Smart chemical sensors developed by N5 Sensors, a company whose research has largely been funded by S&T, were included in two previous experiments and will be used again in Alabama. The company’s eight-gas sensor tests the air in and around first responders for gases that are above a dangerous level. It is just one of many sources of data that will be collected, analyzed and acted on during the exercise.
“Our basic approach is through the use of standards,” Speicher said. “We collect all the data from these new sys- tems at a single point so all the sensors and all the information that’s coming in is effectively published to a single point, what we call an endpoint. Then all the situational awareness platforms can subscribe to it and pool that data. By creating that standard endpoint, that collection of data, we’re able to very easily move the data around the enterprise.”
‘A good view of the art of the possible’
Cuong Luu, the S&T program man- ager who is leading Birmingham’s Shaken Fury experiment, said the test will focus on keeping responders protected, connected and fully aware. “Protected” means looking for new material to safeguard first responders from heat, cold, and gunshot or stab wounds. “Connected” refers to pro- viding connectivity via local-area net- works, virtual LANs and incident area
networks so that responders can com- municate with one another and share information. “Fully aware” involves distributing the captured information to give responders better situational awareness.
“It’s the blending of those three areas that is at the core of the opera- tional experiment,” Speicher added.
Beyond the obvious benefits to city and county agencies, the NGFR exer- cises provide valuable feedback for S&T on the technologies it is involved in developing. “We’re the liaison for many of...the companies that are doing R&D for us,” Speicher said. “They’re anxious for learning and getting that operational feedback so they can get it back in their developmental cycle and make adjustments.”
S&T launched NGFR in 2015 “to look strategically at the nation’s securi- ty and address future challenges while continuing to support today’s opera- tional needs,” according to the S&T website.
The exercise in Alabama represents the culmination of those efforts. “This is the last year for the program,” Luu said. “We are bringing this to Birming- ham to validate what we have done so far.”
Based on the earlier NGFR experi- ments, S&T has created the Next Gen- eration First Responder Integration Handbook to show first-responder agencies how to integrate commer- cial technologies into their existing infrastructure via a plug-and-play, standards-based environment. That approach helps agencies rapidly adapt to changing environments and evolving threats while sharing mission-critical information.
“At the end of the day, we hope to give Birmingham and Jefferson County a good view of the art of the possible and enable them to better prepare and better prioritize the technology that’s going to be impactful to them in preparation for the World Games,” Speicher said. n
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August 2019 FCW.COM