April 20, 2016–The National Institute of Standards and Technology today released a research and development road map for helping it decide how to spend $300 million in funding that the agency is getting from proceeds of the FCC’s AWS (advanced wireless services)-3 auction. “First responders are gaining access to large amounts of new data from diverse sources, and we need to be able to process it without overwhelming public safety,” said Deputy Commerce Secretary Bruce Andrews. “This roadmap allows NIST to begin to chart an R&D course to ensure that new data constructively transforms the way first responders carry out their missions.”
“The Public Safety Analytics R&D Roadmap is the second in a series of technology roadmaps that PSCR will develop over the next few years to better inform the investment decisions of R&D organizations supporting the public safety community,” according to the new road map. “After conducting additional roadmaps in other priority technology areas, PSCR [Public Safety Communications Research program] will identify the R&D project ideas that pose the greatest operational benefit to public safety and prioritize its Public Safety R&D program accordingly.”
“The new analytics roadmap suggests how data collection, processing, analysis and visualization techniques could generate valuable intelligence for public safety in the short term (0 to 5 years), medium term (5 to 10 years) and long term (10 to 20+ years),” a news release noted. “The roadmap identifies trends and drivers, technology capabilities and gaps, enabling actions and actors and potential operational benefits such as improved situational awareness.”
The document identifies R&D opportunities related to software and applications, devices, and networks.
The news release noted the road map includes the following actions related to software: “Create a public safety information sharing and analysis center similar to www.data.gov; define Internet of Things data standards and processing models for public safety; and partner with social media analytics companies to design tools to analyze physical attributes and biometrics in images.”
As for devices, the release cited these actions: “Define requirements for on-device recording and storing of communications transcripts; develop an analytics framework for integrating disparate data sources across public safety devices and sensors; define data standards and exchange protocols for responder-worn sensors.”
With networks, the release observed the road map highlights these opportunities: “Develop resiliency and prioritization services to analyze mission-critical data when the network goes down or is overloaded; develop a network-based element to discover and deliver critical content; and create a standard and/or usage scenario that indicates what information or analytical capabilities are needed during specific situations such as fires, floods, and vehicle crashes.” – Paul Kirby, paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com
Courtesy TRDaily