METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERSISTENT COMMUNICATIONS, INTEROPERABILITY AND SITUATIONAL AWARENESS IN THE AFTERMATH OF A DISASTER
First Claim
1. A system for providing situational awareness from the scene of an incident in which interoperable temporary incident area network modules on a wireless mesh network are used to provide communication between those in the incident area, comprising:
- a prioritized connection module coupled to said wireless mesh network for connecting information from said wireless mesh network to locations outside of said incident area, said prioritized connection module including a switching system for connecting said information to available communications channels and in which said system is prioritized based on channel availability and knowledge of the traffic on said wireless mesh network.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system for providing situational awareness outside a temporary incident area network includes a prioritized connection module for connecting a mesh network at the incident area to one of a plurality of available communications channels, with the selection based not only on the availability of a communications channel but also on the associated expense, speed, reliability or bandwidth, so that high bandwidth traffic such as video and pictures can be reliably sent from the incident area to a location outside of the incident area. In one embodiment switching to a satellite phone network bypasses problems with terrestrial networks such as cell phone networks and landlines which may be down.
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Citations
17 Claims
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1. A system for providing situational awareness from the scene of an incident in which interoperable temporary incident area network modules on a wireless mesh network are used to provide communication between those in the incident area, comprising:
a prioritized connection module coupled to said wireless mesh network for connecting information from said wireless mesh network to locations outside of said incident area, said prioritized connection module including a switching system for connecting said information to available communications channels and in which said system is prioritized based on channel availability and knowledge of the traffic on said wireless mesh network. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A method for establishing situational awareness outside a wireless mesh network at the area of an incident to a location removed from said wireless mesh network, comprising;
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for a series of different communications channels detecting which channels are available and the capacity and reliability of a channel; and
,for a prioritized connection switch data from the wireless mesh network to an available communications channel based on channel availability and at least one of communication channel expense, speed, robustness, bandwidth or reliability. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15)
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16. A system for providing situational awareness from an incident area based on communication between interoperable communications modules on a wireless mesh network, comprising:
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a prioritized connection module connected to said wireless mesh network for determining the availability of a terrestrially-based communication channel; and
,a prioritized connection module for switching information from said wireless network to a satellite phone system in the absence of availability of a terrestrially-based communication channel, whereby said satellite phone system is operable to import and export data from and to said wireless mesh network at said incident area to and from a location remote to said incident area, thus to provide situational awareness outside of said incident area. - View Dependent Claims (17)
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Specification