Survey of Wireless Communication Technologies for Public Safety
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paper_title: Mobile responder communication networks for public safety

paper_content:

This article proposes a paradigm shift from the prevailing public safety model of disparate, agency-owned and -operated Land Mobile Radio networks to Mobile Responder Communication Networks (MRCNs) that are created by unifying communications resources and are shared across cooperating public safety agencies to provide local, regional, or national service. MRCNs use a common IP-based core network employing service-intelligent session control to bridge networks based on LMR and commercial wireless access technologies, thus allowing the support of emerging IP-based multimedia services, high data rate access, and mission-critical tactical group voice and interoperable communications during emergency responses.
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paper_title: Information sharing and interoperability: the case of major incident management

paper_content:

Public sector inter-organisational information sharing and interoperability is an area of increasing concern and intense investment for practice and an area of increasing scholarship. This paper focuses on one particular set of public sector organisations (emergency services) and illuminates the key technological and organisational issues they face concerning information sharing and interoperability. The particular contexts in which these are studied are ones where decisions are non-trivial and made in high-velocity environments. In these conditions the problems and significance of inter-organisational information sharing and interoperability are accentuated. We analyse data gathered from two studies: the first focused on ‘first responders’ (police, fire and ambulance services) in the United Kingdom. The second, a follow on study, with emergency service managers and interoperability project managers in the United Kingdom and the European Union. Using activity theory as a conceptual framework we describe the informational problems critical emergency responders face in their initial response to, and management of, an incident. We argue that rather than focusing on interoperability as a primarily technological issue it should be managed as an organisational and informational issue. Second, we argue that rather than designing for anomalous situations we should design systems, which will function during both anomalous and routine situations. Third, we argue for focus on harmonisation of policies, procedures and working practices.
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paper_title: Emergency Communications: The Quest for Interoperability in the United States and Europe

paper_content:

When on September 11, 2001, the Pentagon stood ablaze, responding fire companies from Maryland could not communicate with those from Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. Runners had to be used instead, stalling rescue efforts: a powerful reminder that even in the age of digital networks and ubiquitous cell phones, communication interoperability, the ability of public safety personnel to communicate by radio with staff from other agencies, on demand and in real time, remains an elusive goal. As almost 60,000 federal, state and local public safety agencies plan to upgrade their communications systems in the wake of 9/11, this essay takes a hard look at communications interoperability and its implementation, here in the United States and in Europe. Three steps have been seen as requirements for interoperability: inventing the appropriate technology, setting common standards and frequencies, and providing adequate funding. This essay looks at each of these steps in the U.S. and European contexts and analyzes successes and failures, rendering a fuller picture both of the challenges for interoperability and of best practices to meet them. Over the last few years (and surprisingly given the complex political structures) the Europeans have pulled ahead of the U.S. in implementing interoperability, although with determination and the right set of strategies, U.S. policymakers can easily make up lost ground. Enhanced Federal Communications Commission (FCC) leadership in defining frequencies and standards and a clearly formulated and thoroughly executed comprehensive funding strategy, based either on public funds or innovative public-private partnerships, would go a long way toward enabling communications interoperability to take hold. Yet, this essay is not simply about how to overcome obstacles on the path to interoperability. The case of interoperability, its elusiveness in the United States and its successes elsewhere, reveals a deeper, more troubling story - a story not so much of technical hurdles, as of structural and political hurdles, as more of perceived than actual constraints, unduly limiting the nation¹s ability to cope with an important public policy need in these uncertain times. There are no abstract silver bullets to overcome the problem. Instead, policymakers have to look carefully at how well the policy strategy they select is aligned with their means and the policy context. In the United States, interoperability has suffered from strategic misalignment and haphazard implementation. European interoperability policies have fared better, not because of a general advantage in the strategies chosen, but because of a better fit between means and ends. Thus interoperability also provides an intriguing test case, highlighting the transcending importance of strategic alignment, agency innovation, and leadership.
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paper_title: Traffic Performance Evaluation of Data Links in TETRA and TETRAPOL

paper_content:

TETRA and TETRAPOL are competitors in the market of Professional Mobile Radio (PMR). In a previous study we compared the trunked mobile radio systems TETRA V+D and TETRAPOL by evaluating random access performance. Here we present a comparison of the TETRA and TETRAPOL error correction schemes involved to secure LLC data links. The traffic performance of both systems was compared for ETSI scenario 8. Realistic models for the effects of propagation circumstances and co-channel interference are taken into account. The results of the traffic performance measurements exhibit differences in connection set-up times and transmission delays for data links in TETRA and TETRAPOL systems in favour of the TETRA system and reveal a strong dependency on random access delays.
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paper_title: Easy-to-Deploy Emergency Communication System Based on a Transparent Telecommunication Satellite

paper_content:

This paper presents a satellite-based communication system dedicated to disaster recovery. The proposed solution relies on the underlay transmission of low-power emergency signals in the frequency band of a primary transparent satellite telecommunication system. Wideband spreading is used so as to guarantee that the primary system performance is not affected by the inter-system interference. The emergency system capacity is evaluated under realistic assumptions regarding the primary satellite mission. It is shown that depending on the emergency terminal characteristics, various emergency communication services can be envisaged, from simple alert missions to voice communications. As it does not require any specific space segment development nor the full-time reservation of expensive radio resources, the described solution is attractive in terms of deployment cost. Provided an extension of the regulatory framework for exceptional security-oriented missions, it might satisfactorily match a governmental need for reliable, easy-to-deploy emergency communication means.
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paper_title: On Effects of Antenna Pointing Accuracy for On-the-Move Satellite Networks

paper_content:

In this paper, we study the adjacent geostationary satellite interference to/from on-the-move platforms with motion-induced antenna pointing errors. First, using satellite geometry, we derive tight upper and lower bounds for the average uplink and downlink interferences. Then, we derive the exact distribution of the adjacent satellite interference, and using a Gaussian approximation, we compute bounds for the outage probability for both links. Finally, the outage performance is investigated by simulations and by evaluation of the derived expressions. The performance results show the accuracy of the analytical expressions and quantify the link degradation due to random antenna pointing errors in on-the-move satellite communication systems.
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paper_title: SALICE - Satellite-Assisted LocalIzation and Communication systems for Emergency services

paper_content:

This paper describes the SALICE (Satellite-Assisted LocalIzation and Communication systems for Emergency services) project, an Italian National Research Project which has been recently funded by the Italian Ministry of Research; the SALICE project aims at identifying the solutions which can be adopted in an integrated reconfigurable NAV/COM device and studying its feasibility in realistic scenarios. The first goal of the SALICE project is the definition of the baseline scenarios and system architecture which will allow the design of new and effective solutions for what concerns integrated communications and localization techniques, Software Defined Radio (SDR) NAV/COM devices, satellite and HAPS integration in the rescue services, heterogeneous solutions in the area of intervention (IAN, Incident Area Network). Particular attention will be devoted to the optimization of the resources management strategies and to the cooperative localization of rescue entities (persons and means) that intervene in emergency situations.
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paper_title: A mobile ad-hoc satellite and wireless Mesh networking approach for Public Safety communications

paper_content:

It is widely recognized that emergency management and disaster recovery systems are an issue of paramount importance in communities through the world. The definition of a public safety communications infrastructure is a high-priority task due to the lack of interoperability between emergency response departments, the reduced mobility during coordinated operations on a broad scale and the need for access to critical data in real-time. This work proposes an ldquoad-hoc networkingrdquo approach for emergency mobile communications in a satellite and wireless mesh scenario, in which ad hoc and IPv6 mobility mechanisms are combined together. First we analyze mobility management aspects and IP layer protocols and then we focus on proxy mobile IPv6, a network-based mobility management protocol which represents the more suitable micro-mobility solution for the proposed scenario with heterogeneous networks and unmodified mobile terminals.
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paper_title: EHF for Satellite Communications: The New Broadband Frontier

paper_content:

The exploitation of extremely high-frequency (EHF) bands (30-300 GHz) for broadband transmission over satellite links is currently a hot research topic. In particular, the Q-V band (30-50 GHz) and W-band (75-110 GHz) seem to offer very promising perspectives. This paper aims at presenting an overview of the current status of research and technology in EHF satellite communications and taking a look at future perspectives in terms of applications and services. Challenges and open issues are adequately considered together with some viable solutions and future developments. The proposed analysis highlighted the need for a reliable propagation model based on experimental data acquired in orbit. Other critical aspects should be faced at the PHY-layer level in order to manage the tradeoff between power efficiency, spectral efficiency, and robustness against link distortions. As far as networking aspects are concerned, the large bandwidth availability should be converted into increased throughput by means of suitable radio resource management and transport protocols, able to support very high data rates in long-range aerospace scenarios.
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paper_title: Analyzing Options for Airborne Emergency Wireless Communications

paper_content:

In the event of large-scale natural or manmade catastrophic events, access to reliable and enduring commercial communication systems is critical. Hurricane Katrina provided a recent example of the need to ensure communications during a national emergency. To ensure that communication demands are met during these critical times, Idaho National Laboratory (INL) under the guidance of United States Strategic Command has studied infrastructure issues, concerns, and vulnerabilities associated with an airborne wireless communications capability. Such a capability could provide emergency wireless communications until public/commercial nodes can be systematically restored. This report focuses on the airborne cellular restoration concept; analyzing basic infrastructure requirements; identifying related infrastructure issues, concerns, and vulnerabilities and offers recommended solutions.
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paper_title: Public Safety Communication Using Commercial Cellular Technology

paper_content:

We propose a concept for public safety communication realized with IMS (IP multimedia subsystem), the cellular standards of 3GPP and packet switched transmission. Basing the solution on mainstream cellular technology leverages the economy of scale of today's commercial networks and enables migration of technical solutions and applications. Important requirements of the public safety sector are group communication, low latency, high capacity, security, reliability and interoperability for voice and broadband data services. Our analysis shows that the concept has the technology potential to meet these public safety requirements.
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paper_title: Self-organizing relay stations in relay based cellular networks

paper_content:

The increasing popularity of wireless communications and the higher data requirements of new types of service lead to higher demands on wireless networks. Relay based cellular networks have been seen as an effective way to meet users' increased bit rate requirements while still retaining the benefits of a cellular structure. The objective of this paper is to illustrate effective and efficient approaches for fast deployment of relay stations into existing cellular networks and to demonstrate improvements to system capacity and performance resulting from cooperation between network components. Cooperative control based on geographic load balancing is employed to provide flexibility for the wireless network and respond to changes in the environment. Flexibility in the antenna system is used to provide coverage at the right place at the right time. Experiments show that the proposed approach has significant improvements and robustness in heterogeneous traffic scenarios, even in disaster conditions where some base stations fail. The performance evaluations are based on Mobile WiMAX technology, but the concepts apply more generally.
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paper_title: Wireless Mesh Networking: A Key Solution for Emergency & Rural Applications

paper_content:

All communities whether they are rural or urban will have to respond to safety, disasters, and emergency situations. These situations place a special burden on communication systems for having a fully operational system. Given the shortcomings of current Public Safety and Disaster Recovery, reliable wireless mobile communications that enable real-time information sharing, constant availability, and interagency interoperability are imperative in emergency situation. Wireless Mesh Networks have been receiving a great deal of attention as a broadband access alternative for a wide range of markets, including those in the metro, emergency,public-safety, carrier-access, and residential sectors. This paper provides a background on technology requirements for emergency and public safety communications systems and addresses some of the technical influences of wireless mesh networks. The article describes the capabilities and architecture of the Man-portable, Interoperable, Tactical Operations Center communication system which was funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is a modern mobile communications infrastructure well suited for public safety and disaster recovery applications.
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paper_title: Using WiMAX for effective business continuity during and after disaster

paper_content:

Disasters occur in different forms and at different times. It can be man-made or natural. In either case businesses can suffer immensely due to interruption to various Information Technology (IT) services. With global warming natural disasters are predicted more often than before. Further, with freely available tools on the Internet more and more hackers are exploiting system vulnerabilities to craft unexpected system failures. With today's heavy dependency on IT, business success exclusively depends on the availability of IT services. Hence sustainability of IT services has become a major concern to organizations. Therefore, establishing network connectivity to an emergency site and enabling system availability will be of immense significance to the success of businesses under disastrous conditions. In this context, the applicability of mobile Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology to establish network connectivity during and after a disaster is to be investigated. Although, there are many business continuity solutions dealing with other IT services, the problem of network failure and the ability to quickly establish network connectivity locally and remotely are to be explored in this study.
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paper_title: Evolving public safety communication systems by integrating WLAN and TETRA networks

paper_content:

This article contributes to the evolution of public safety communication systems by specifying a novel solution for integrating WLAN and Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) networks. The specified solution allows TETRA terminals to interface to the TETRA Switching and Management Infrastructure (SwMI) over a broadband WLAN radio access network, instead of the conventional narrowband TETRA radio network. These terminals are fully interoperable with conventional TETRA terminals and can employ all TETRA services, including group calls, short data messaging, packet data, and so forth. In addition, however, such terminals can support a range of brand new capabilities enabled by the WLAN, such as broadband data services, true concurrent voice and data services, simultaneous reception of many group calls, reduced call setup and voice transmission delays, improved voice quality, and so forth. The specified solution is solely based on IP multicast and Voice-over-IP (VoIP) technologies and thus fits ideally to the all-IP architecture being introduced by the MESA project for the next generation of public safety and disaster relief communication systems.
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paper_title: Wireless commons perils in the common good

paper_content:

In the last few years, high-speed wireless access to the Internet has grown rapidly. Surprisingly, this growth has not come through cellular phone networks as many had expected, but through IEEE 802.11 standards-based wireless local area networks (WLANs). This rise of WLANs can be partly linked to the creation of a series of open standards, a precipitous fall in the costs of related hardware, and the explosive growth of home networking. WLANs have become commonplace in the education, transportation, and manufacturing sectors and are rapidly embraced in the retail, hospitality, and government sectors.
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paper_title: ZigBee Sensor Network for Patient Localization and Air Temperature Monitoring During Emergency Response to Crisis

paper_content:

The mass casualty emergency response involves logistic impediments like overflowing victims, paper triaging, extended victim wait time and transport. We propose a new system based on a location aware wireless sensor network (WSN) to overcome these impediments and assist the emergency responders (ER) in providing efficient emergency response during disasters like chemical explosions. In this paper we have only elaborated about the patient tracking and local air temperature monitoring functionalities of this system. We have developed an energy efficient ZigBee-ready temperature sensor node hardware and setup a ZigBee mesh network demonstrator. An RSSI-based localization solution is tested to analyze its suitability to track patients at the disaster site. A new algorithm to detect and display the temperature zones at the disaster site is developed and analyzed to find its computation efficiency. The patient tracking and temperature zone detection results show the increase of situation awareness, which can enable fast patient evacuation.
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paper_title: WIDENS: advanced wireless ad-hoc networks for public safety

paper_content:

A structure made up of several components, particularly for use in classrooms is described which comprises at least two basic elements, each of said basic elements comprising an L-shaped panel and a T-shaped base parallel to said L-shaped panel and three vertical legs connecting said L-shaped panel to said T-shaped base, two of said legs being mounted at the extremity of the short sides of said T-shaped base and one leg being mounted at the extremity of the long side of the T-shaped base, said L-shaped panel having a plurality of blind orifices along the edge located at a modular distance, said T-shaped base being provided with a plurality of orifices, and a plurality of pins for insertion into the blind orifices of said L-shaped panel for connection of at least two basic elements. The connection between a plurality of basic elements is additionally achieved by means of rectangular boards having two orifices at the extremities and two smaller orifices in the center of the edge of the longer sides of said rectangular boards or rectangular boards having a plurality of orifices at modular distance.
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paper_title: Public Safety and Emergency Case Communications: Opportunities from the Aspect of Cognitive Radio

paper_content:

Recent developments in wireless communications systems and the introduction of new technologies such as cognitive radios are expected to bring beneficial methodologies and solutions to the problems of public safety and emergency case communications, especially related to interoperability issues. Physical layer adaptiveness and spectrum sensing methodology of cognitive radios are commonly emphasized related to spectral efficiency and frequency domain interoperability of public safety communications. However, wide range of opportunities introduced by the awareness, learning and intelligence features of cognitive radios necessitate the reassessment of opportunities to the public safety and emergency case communications from a more complementary aspect. One aspect can be the development of applications that will lead to communicate, locate and reach victims who are stuck in disaster areas, underground (e.g. underground mine explosions) or behind obstacles. It is aimed to discuss how communication with survivors can be accomplished and how the estimation of their locations utilizing received signals can be achieved by benefiting from the advantages of cognitive radio technology. Second objective is to define the scope of the research required for adaptive and secure physical layer reconfigurability to overcome communication congestion and to satisfy the interoperability and security requirements of public safety communications systems during emergency cases and extreme situations.
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paper_title: The EULER project: application of software defined radio in joint security operations

paper_content:

The task of improving the effectiveness of public safety communications has become a main priority for governments. This is partly motivated by the increased risk of natural disasters such as flooding, earthquakes, and fires, and partly due to the risks and consequent impact of terrorist attacks. This article focuses on the experience from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme project known as EULER, which seeks to demonstrate the benefits of software defined radio technology to support the resolution of natural disasters of significant stature, which require the participation of different public safety and military organizations, potentially of different nations. In such scenarios, the presence of interoperability barriers in the disaster area is a major challenge because different organizations may use different wireless communication systems. In this context, the main aspect investigated in EULER is the definition of a common waveform that respects the software communications architecture constraints, and guarantees maximum portability across SDR platforms. This article discusses a range of issues that have been identified thus far within the EULER project; in particular, the perceived pan-European interoperability needs of public safety, and coordination with military devices and networks. Aspects of interoperability are also extended to the three dimensions of platform, waveform, and information assurance.
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paper_title: Cognitive radio: making software radios more personal

paper_content:

Software radios are emerging as platforms for multiband multimode personal communications systems. Radio etiquette is the set of RF bands, air interfaces, protocols, and spatial and temporal patterns that moderate the use of the radio spectrum. Cognitive radio extends the software radio with radio-domain model-based reasoning about such etiquettes. Cognitive radio enhances the flexibility of personal services through a radio knowledge representation language. This language represents knowledge of radio etiquette, devices, software modules, propagation, networks, user needs, and application scenarios in a way that supports automated reasoning about the needs of the user. This empowers software radios to conduct expressive negotiations among peers about the use of radio spectrum across fluents of space, time, and user context. With RKRL, cognitive radio agents may actively manipulate the protocol stack to adapt known etiquettes to better satisfy the user's needs. This transforms radio nodes from blind executors of predefined protocols to radio-domain-aware intelligent agents that search out ways to deliver the services the user wants even if that user does not know how to obtain them. Software radio provides an ideal platform for the realization of cognitive radio.
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paper_title: Feasibility study of a SDR-based reconfigurable terminal for emergency applications

paper_content:

Today, more attention is paid to emergency systems and rescuer organizations due to the increasing sensitivity to natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In this paper, we would consider the feasibility of telecommunication technologies that can enhance the interconnection between accident zones and rescue teams. A novel philosophy inspired by Software Defined Radios is proposed in order to design a reconfigurable receiver for rescue team assistance in emergency scenarios, which can encompass some basic functionalities, i) spectrum sensing and automatic mode identification, ii) dynamic multistandard reconfigurability, iii) navigation and communication integration. Results shown can prove the feasibility of the software implementation of the reconfigurable terminal over suitable processing architectures, characterized by affordable cost and open-source software development.
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paper_title: Feasibility of long term evolution (LTE) as technology for public safety

paper_content:

Being that current Professional Mobile Radio systems, such as TETRA, APCO25 or DMR suffer from slow data transfer, LTE technology is taking its place as the choice for public safety broadband communication system. Declared performance in terms of capacity, reliability and security is enough to fulfill the strict requirements of the public safety users. Quality of Service concept in LTE, with Allocation and Retention Priority, Quality Class Identifier, Traffic Flow Templates with addition of access classes is the solid ground for deployment of LTE as the solution for public safety broadband data transfer. The expectation, sourcing from the author's experience in planning and deployment of public safety communication systems, is that, with additional efforts of 3GPP in definition of concepts to support the fallback schemes, group calls and enhanced security, and with careful particular system planning — which is the task for both network operators and special users, LTE may continue to be the choice for public safety data transfer, and the future solution for voice communication as well.
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paper_title: A Policy Proposal to Enable Cognitive Radio for Public Safety and Industry in the Land Mobile Radio Bands

paper_content:

The frequency bands that have been licensed to the land mobile radio (LMR) services for decades are a tremendously fertile field for the deployment of cognitive radio technology. This paper outlines several reasons why policy-based cognitive radios would be particularly useful for modern public safety, federal non-military and business/industrial applications, especially in the VHF and UHF bands, where 80% of the public safety, federal and business/industrial licenses are currently held. This paper argues that many interoperability deficiencies are directly related to the original approach to spectrum policy and radio frequency regulation developed in the early 1920's, which segmented uses of LMR spectrum into several use classes. It provides a historic perspective to explain why the current status of LMR infrastructure, operations and licensee behavior is a direct result of antiquated policies and technologies still applied and deployed in these bands. The paper discusses the reasons that cognitive radio could be a successful solution for the apparent congestion in the bands. It suggests that policy-based cognitive radio systems operated on a cooperative, shared basis could lower costs of use and aid coordination for emergency responders across both public and private sectors of the traditional LMR user community. We discuss policy reforms and innovations such as spectrum pooling and spectrum portability that could spur new shared infrastructure development and spectrum efficiencies. We suggest several key policy reforms for consideration, including immediate cessation of ongoing narrowbanding initiatives, decoupling of spectrum licenses from spectrum access, and national spectrum management by frequency coordinators.
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paper_title: Designing the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Handheld, Manpack, and Small form Fit (HMS) Radios for Interoperable Networking and Waveform Applications

paper_content:

The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Handheld, Manpack, Small Form Fit (HMS) radios are being developed for manned as well as unmanned and unattended platforms. Each platform that embeds a JTRS HMS set brings along its own concept of operation creating unique networking challenges in terms of achieving a seamless, interoperable, mobile, and adhoc communications architecture. To design and develop these radios within established schedule and cost objectives, the program must overcome a number of technical challenges. This paper will identify the driving requirements, outline the technical challenges, and propose optimal solutions that balance networking functionality and waveform interoperability while still meeting Size, Weight, Power, Cost, and Schedule objectives.
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paper_title: Software Defined Radio: Challenges and Opportunities

paper_content:

Software Defined Radio (SDR) may provide flexible, upgradeable and longer lifetime radio equipment for the military and for civilian wireless communications infrastructure. SDR may also provide more flexible and possibly cheaper multi-standard-terminals for end users. It is also important as a convenient base technology for the future context-sensitive, adaptive and learning radio units referred to as cognitive radios. SDR also poses many challenges, however, some of them causing SDR to evolve slower than otherwise anticipated. Transceiver development challenges include size, weight and power issues such as the required computing capacity, but also SW architectural challenges such as waveform application portability. SDR has demanding implications for regulators, security organizations and business developers.
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paper_title: Opportunistic radio access techniques for emergency communications: Preliminary analysis and results

paper_content:

In this work, we aim at considering innovative techniques of spectrum management and radio access for emergency communications. In particular, cognitive and opportunistic radio access and resource management have been tested in emergency scenarios. The breakdown of existing wireless network infrastructures can produce a lot of big spectrum holes, i.e.: large frequency spaces not currently used by any kind of primary users. In such a situation, the emergency communication system, instead of remaining “tied down” together with the partially or totally out-of-service terrestrial network infrastructures, may transmit information wherever and whenever it is possible. Single-Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) has been considered as basic multiple access protocol thanks to its features of agility in frequency and robustness against nonlinear distortions. A radio resource management protocol which maximizes fairness among users has been considered for the cognitive transmission system. Simulation results evidenced a substantial increase of transmission quality and coverage with respect to conventional radio access strategies that do not exploit cognitive features.
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paper_title: Pulsed pseudolite signal effects on non-participating GNSS receivers

paper_content:

Pseudolites are a technology with the potential of bridging the gap between outdoor and indoor navigation. Despite their potential, pseudolites can cause severe interference problems with non-participating receivers, i.e., devices not designed to exploit this technology. In this paper, the loss caused by pulsed pseudolite signals is determined as a function of the pulse duty cycle and the number of bits employed for signal quantization. Quantization, blanking and noise increase are identified as the main sources of signal degradation. Theoretical results are validated by simulations and experiments performed using commercial GPS receivers. The good agreement between theoretical and experimental results supports the validity of the proposed approach.
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paper_title: UltraWideBand indoor positioning systems and their use in emergencies

paper_content:

Reliable and accurate indoor positioning for moving users requires a local replacement for satellite navigation. An UltraWideBand (UWB) system is particularly suitable for such local systems, including temporary installations supporting emergency services inside large buildings. The requirements for emergencies will be very variable, but will generally include: good radio penetration through structures, the rapid set-up of a stand-alone system, tolerance of high levels of reflection, and high accuracy. The accuracy should be better than 1 m, as sometimes it matters which side of a door you are, and locations should be in 3 dimensions. Support for robots as well as people would call for still better accuracy. Rapid set-up implies very little surveying of the fixed terminals, and positioning relative to the mobile and fixed terminals. A radio system that measures ranges between fixed and mobile terminals matches these requirements, but the requirements for accuracy and for dealing with multipath need a bandwidth of more than 1 GHz. Thus UWB is the preferred solution, as it has the specific advantage of high accuracy, even in the presence of severe multipath. This paper presents the features and system design options for UWB positioning systems, and shows how they match the indoor location demands of emergency services. The main features that are covered are: the deployment of terminals (how many, and where), the minimum requirements for fixed terminal surveying, integration (hybridisation) with GNSS, and solving for position inside the network. The main system design options are: whether the mobile terminals are transceivers or solely receivers, the UWB signal design and frequency span, and the use of the same signal for communications. The paper includes results from a demonstration UWB indoor positioning system being built at TRT (UK).
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paper_title: Bandwidth effect on distance error modeling for indoor geolocation

paper_content:

In this paper we introduce a model for the distance error measured from the estimated time of arrival (TOA) of the direct path (DP) between the transmitter and the receiver in a typical multipath indoor environment. We use the results of a calibrated Ray tracing software in a sample office environment. First we divide the whole floor plan into LOS and Obstructed LOS (OLOS), and then we model the distance error in each environment considering the variation of bandwidth of the system. We show that the behavior of the distance error in LOS environment can be modeled as Gaussian, while behavior of the OLOS is a mixture of Gaussian and exponential distribution. We also related the statistics of the distributions to the bandwidth of the system.
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paper_title: Omnidirectional Pedestrian Navigation for First Responders

paper_content:

It might be assumed that dead reckoning approaches to pedestrian navigation could address the needs of first responders, including fire fighters. However, conventional PDR approaches with body-mounted motion sensors can fail when used with the irregular walking patterns typical of urban search and rescue missions. In this paper, a technique using shoe-mounted sensors and inertial mechanization equations to directly calculate the displacement of the feet between footfalls is described. Zero-velocity updates (ZUPTs) at foot standstills limit the drift that would otherwise occur with inexpensive IMUs. We show that the technique is fairly accurate in terms of distance travelled and can handle many arbitrary manoevers, such as tight turns, side/back stepping and stair climbing.
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paper_title: A Low-Power Scheme for Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks

paper_content:

One of the most challenging issues in the design of system for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is to keep the energy consumption of the sensor nodes as low as possible. Many localization systems require that the nodes keep the transceiver active during a long time consuming energy. In this work we propose a scheme to reduce the energy consumption of the mobile nodes that need to know their positions. Our strategy consists of decreasing the idle listening and an optimized allocation of the localization tasks on the nodes. Thus, the nodes that are externally powered calculate the position for the resource-constrained nodes. The scheme is based on a low-power IEEE 802.15.4 nonbeacon enabled network.
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paper_title: Using of mobile device localization for several types of applications in intelligent crisis management

paper_content:

Main area of interest is in a system enhancement for locating and tracking users of our information system inside the buildings. The developed framework as it is described here joins the concepts of location and user tracking as an extension for a new type of mobile information systems. The experimental framework prototype uses a WiFi network infrastructure to let a mobile device determine its indoor position. User location can be used by several types of applications. In first case the user location is used for data pre-buffering and pushing information from server to user's PDA. All server data is saved as artifacts (together) with its position information in building. The accessing of prebuffered data on mobile device can highly improve response time needed to view large multimedia data. In second case the user location information is used for crisis management in large area buildings. Real-time position location can be used to track service personnel (e.g., police officers, rescue teams, fire brigades, etc.), lost children, suspected criminals, and stolen vehicles.
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Title: Survey of Wireless Communication Technologies for Public Safety

Section 1: INTRODUCTION
Description 1: Introduce the role of Public Safety (PS) organizations in disaster preparedness and recovery, their reliance on ICT, and the challenges in wireless communication technology for public safety.

Section 2: Public Safety organizations, functions and scenarios
Description 2: Discuss the various public safety organizations, their functions, and the operational scenarios in which they operate.

Section 3: Operational scenarios
Description 3: Describe the typical operational domains and specific communication challenges faced by PS organizations in different scenarios.

Section 4: Communication services and applications
Description 4: Outline the services required by PS communication systems and their related features, including voice, data, and location services.

Section 5: Requirements
Description 5: Identify common operational and technical requirements for PS wireless communication systems.

Section 6: Business considerations and market comparison with commercial and military domains
Description 6: Compare PS communication systems with commercial and military communication technologies, highlighting differences in business models and technology usage.

Section 7: Wireless Communication technologies
Description 7: Provide an overview of the current wireless communication technologies used by PS organizations, including TETRA, APCO 25, TETRAPOL, satellite networks, and more.

Section 8: Radio frequency Spectrum regulations
Description 8: Explain the spectrum regulatory frameworks that govern the use of wireless communication technologies by PS organizations in Europe and the USA.

Section 9: Future wireless communication technologies and services
Description 9: Discuss potential future communication technologies for PS, such as LTE, Software Defined Radio (SDR), Cognitive Radio (CR), and indoor positioning.

Section 10: Status of security research in Europe
Description 10: Summarize the current research projects and initiatives in Europe aimed at enhancing PS communication capabilities.

Section 11: Summary of the research challenges
Description 11: Recap the identified research challenges for future wireless communication technologies in the public safety domain.

Section 12: CONCLUSIONS
Description 12: Conclude the paper, emphasizing the importance of wireless communication technologies in supporting PS operations and their potential evolution.