PAGE CONTENTS
Objectives
Communication is essential in Public Safety and Security operations. Fast and reliable communications enable the acceleration of the mission. The smart sharing of information provides a coherent situation awareness to everyone, improving efficiency with a shared comprehension of the operational facts. In this perspective, SPEED focused on end-users mobile communications needs. Complementarities of satellite and wireless systems seem to be of high interest.
The objectives were to propose a preliminary design of an integrated system, to ensure the technological feasibility of the solution and to provide R&D and roadmap recommendations.
Organisational, political and business perspectives have been analysed in a second step.
The study objectives focused on the feasibility, the definition and size of an integrated mobile system dedicated to European Public Safety and Security operations. A hybrid system, composed of satellite, CGC and PMR segments is envisaged to meet the end-users’ requirements.
Four major activities have been realised:
- The first activity was to assess the users requirements, based on an initial state of the art existing communication capabilities, on lessons learned, analysis of recent operational scenarios and end-users assessment (through a questionnaire campaign and interviews),
- The second activity was to define and size the adequate solutions, based on a hybrid satellite / terrestrial architecture. Two approaches have been followed: the terrestrial segment has been considered as an evolution (or a future evolution) of the existing dedicated PMR networks whereas the satellite segment has been defined as a new component, dedicated to Public Safety operations,
- The third activity was to identify the critical technological required to ensure the feasibility of the proposed solution, the regulatory or organisational risks which have to be addressed in order to be able to develop the final system and finally to identify. R&T critical issues and propose roadmap and recommendations to ESA,
- A complementary activity has been included thanks to a Change Notice to the Contract. It focused on the analysis of the political and organisational issues to set up an ambitious European telecommunication programme and on the possible economical models, involving both commercial operators and institutional bodies at European level.
Challenges
The main issues of the project were:
- To get a representative feed-back from end-users, despite their different experiences.
- Secondly to provide a comprehensive specification of the system in order to best respond to Public Safety & Security operations needs.
- To take into account all technical issues, from a system point of view, in the definition of the system.
- To carry out an exhaustive analysis of required technologies in order to identify all potential technological risks or gaps and provide a comprehensive roadmap for future R&D activities,
- To identify the feasibility of such program from a non-technical perspective: organisational, political and business feasibility.
Plan
This one year study was divided into six tasks (Task0 is dedicated to project management) and the latest activity performed in a 4months period, after the completion of the first activities.
During the first six months, the consortium carried out three tasks oriented towards end-users:
- Review of current and future mobile communication systems and their usage in daily and/or emergency operations.
- Analysis of recent operational scenarios to validate mobile communication interest and added-value.
- Definition of end-users requirements on two levels: operational requirements and technical requirements.
During the second period, the consortium focused on technical issues:
- Design and size of the proposed hybrid solution,
- Identification of key technologies,
- Roadmap proposition.
To achieve the CCN objectives, the consortium focused on:
- Organisational and political issues,
- Business perspectives,
- Specific case of S-band possible usage for Public Safety.
These analyses have been completed with interviews of the key stakeholders, among them: European institutional bodies and European satellite operators.
Current Status
All activities are now completed.
At the end of the first six-month period, the Operational Requirements Review took place in Athens, at KEMEA premises. During the second six-month period, the consortium has focused on technical issues. The Final Review took place in Toulouse, at Astrium premises, on the 27th of May 2010.
The complementary analysis proposed to ESA to assess the programmatic, organisational and political feasibility of this dedicated communication system to Public Safety operations has been performed in a 4 months period and finalised in October 2011.
