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 involving communication systems which are taken down by a catastrophic incident in which the catastrophic incident occurs at an incident area involving a scene in which an incident is taking place, herein, after the catastrophic incident, an interoperable temporary incident area network modules on a wireless mesh network are used to provide communication between said incident area network modules in the incident area, comprising:
- a connection module coupled to said wireless mesh network for connecting information communicating by said wireless mesh network to network nodes at locations outside of said incident area, said connection based on detecting inoperability of a communication link impacted by the catastrophic incident to handle all traffic, said connection module including a switching system for connecting said information to an operable communications channel link between said mesh network and said network nodes at locations outside said incident area, selecting an operable communication link being based on the availability of an operational channel link with sufficient bandwidth in view of said catastrophic incident.
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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.
75 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A system for providing situational awareness involving communication systems which are taken down by a catastrophic incident in which the catastrophic incident occurs at an incident area involving a scene in which an incident is taking place, herein, after the catastrophic incident, an interoperable temporary incident area network modules on a wireless mesh network are used to provide communication between said incident area network modules in the incident area, comprising:
a connection module coupled to said wireless mesh network for connecting information communicating by said wireless mesh network to network nodes at locations outside of said incident area, said connection based on detecting inoperability of a communication link impacted by the catastrophic incident to handle all traffic, said connection module including a switching system for connecting said information to an operable communications channel link between said mesh network and said network nodes at locations outside said incident area, selecting an operable communication link being based on the availability of an operational channel link with sufficient bandwidth in view of said catastrophic incident. - 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 in which there is a catastrophic interruption of communication due to communication links going down as a result of the catastrophic incident, said method comprising the steps of:
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selecting a channel link from a plurality of different communications channel links between the wireless mesh network and a network node outside the area of the incident, said selected channel link being detected to be operable after the catastrophic incident to handle all traffic with a predetermined capacity and reliability; and
,switching data, from the wireless mesh network over a connection using said selected communications channel link operable after the catastrophic interruption to a network node outside the area of the incident based on channel link operability to handle all traffic, and further based on at least one of communication channel cost, speed, robustness, bandwidth or reliability, data at the network node outside the area of the incident being coupled to the internet. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15)
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16. A system after the occurrence of a catastrophic incident resulting in down communication links 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 channel availability determining unit connected between said wireless mesh network and a network node outside said incident area for determining after said catastrophic incident the availability of a terrestrially-based communication channel to connect all the data on said wireless mesh network to said network node outside said incident area; and
,a connection module for switching information from said wireless network to a satellite phone system coupled to said network node outside said incident area in the determined absence of operability of a terrestrially-based communication channel to connect all data, 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, wherein said terrestrially-based communication channel and said satellite phone system are prioritized based on cost of communication, and wherein communications are switched to said satellite phone system based on said cost of communication thus to provide cost effective situational awareness outside of said incident area. - View Dependent Claims (17)
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Specification