Chicago Ready To Roll
Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management & Communications new satellite-equipped command vehicle is designed to extend core command, control, and communications functions to any location within the continental United States via satellite. This is accomplished by IP-based networking and a large Ku-band satellite hub terminal located in downtown Chicago. Together, these form the nucleus of Chicago’s Unified Command System.
“We have connections to our GIS spacial database engine. The Chicago area is mapped with all GIS intelligence including building layers and underground infrastructure,” says James Argiropoulos, managing deputy of information services at Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management & Communications. “The vehicle also has our 911 public safety computer aided dispatch on board. This greatly assists us in command and control situations relating to police, fire and EMS resources. All [fire department] resources are monitored by GPS. Therefore we can watch resources on our mapping system live throughout the city.”
Inside the truck are two fully-equipped dispatch positions for police and fire dispatchers, along with three technical work stations. A fully-automated 1.5-meter VSAT antenna and 80-watt solid state power
amplifier allow the satellite link between the truck and the hub to operate nominally at about 4 Megabits per second (Mbps). If needed, the satellite system can operate at duplex satellite data rates of up to 45 Mbps. The Ku-band satellite hub terminal, located at the separate site from the Office of Emergency Management & Communications, is linked via an Ethernet line that can provide speeds of up to 100 Mbps. A slower Ku-band iDirect solution on the vehicle serves as the backup link in the event of a primary system failure.
“The vehicle allows us to access our servers, applications, networks, cellular and radio infrastructure from anywhere in the field as if we were in our own facility,” says Argiropoulos. “This truck brings us the hardcore technical discipline required to manage a large scale incident remotely. With the power of satellite we can now bring all of our technical tools to the key decision makers in the field.” In addition to a pair of DirecTV direct broadcast satellite receivers, the primary and back-up Ku-band satellite antennas also are able to receive private, standards-based video broadcasts via satellite using a separate receiver.
The truck is equipped with an onboard video switching and routing system to distribute video from various sources to any video monitor or broadcast element. The truck also is equipped with a complete production-quality video uplink capable of transmitting video via satellite in a number of formats including MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 over digital video broadcast and over IP. A commercial IP-based video conferencing system compatible with similar systems already has been deployed within the city’s network. The truck can also serve as a video relay platform for video originated onboard helicopters.
Because voice is so critical to the success of the city’s Unified Command System, 23 central office voice channels provided to the truck over the dedicated Ku-band satellite link are connected to a Cisco router at the satellite hub, and 92 Centrex voice channels also are provided to the truck over the dedicated Ku-band satellite. Among other things, these 92 lines are configured to forward 911 calls to the truck with a revectoring command issued in the event that the emergency operations center is inoperative in the wake of a catastrophe.
This is relevant because Chicago has 500 miles of fiber and 850 miles of copper which connects all police, fire and strategic government locations to the Office of Emergency Management & Communications, according to Argiropoulos. “We have millions of dollars invested in applications and telephony that are used during large scale events. Until September we only enjoyed our myriad of applications within the confines of our building or through commercial wireless carriers,” he says. “In an effort to step up our service delivery to the citizens of Chicago we took our technology concepts to the next level through the implementation of satellite technology. We constructed a very large Earth station in an undisclosed location and piped our fiber to the Ku satellite dish. We now have full access to our networks in the field.
“Perhaps most significantly, this vehicle’s combination of technology and mobility allows our top emergency response officials to be on an emergency scene and still able to make use of all of the applications we have generated,” he adds.
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