Mission Statement

To provide the public safety community with a better understanding of what to expect from new and emerging networking technologies, and accelerate the standardization and utilization of such technologies.

Projects

Channel propagation models
- 700 MHz modeling
Network simulation models
- Mine mesh networks
- P25 ISSI modeling
Video quality characterization
Indoor localization
RFID interference measurement
Prior work

Publications

C. Gentile and A. Kik, A Comprehensive Evaluation of Indoor Ranging Using Ultra-Wideband Technology

C. Gentile, A.J. Braga, and A. Kik, A Comprehensive Evaluation of Joint Range and Angle Estimation in Indoor Ultrawideband Location Systems

M. R. Souryal, J. Geissbuehler, L. E. Miller, and N. Moayeri, Real-Time Deployment of Multihop Relays for Range Extension

M. T. Refaei, M. Souryal, and N. Moayeri, Interference Avoidance in Rapidly Deployed Wireless Ad Hoc Incident Area Networks

More publications....

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Public Safety Communications

What are the issues?

It is well known that first responders face significant problems with existing radio communication equipment. This is partly due to the lack of interoperability among the different types of radio equipment they currently use. As new wireless networks are being developed by standard developing organizations such as Project 25, TIA TR 8.8 IEEE 802, 3GPP, the main question is, are these emerging technologies suitable for public safety needs? And if the answer is no, then the question becomes: how can these wireless technologies be improved before they are deployed and become a critical part of public safety communications.

How are we addressing these issues?

Our goals are two-fold. First, we would like to provide the public safety community with the performance analysis tools needed to better understand emerging network technologies and facilitate:

the evaluation of worst/best case network deployment scenarios,
the investigation of how well new technologies support public safety requirements
the development of quantitative requirements for public safety communications.

Second, our goal is to drive the development of next generation network standards in support of public safety communication needs and as determined by the first objective.

This work is supported by programs in the NIST Office of Law Enforcement (OLES) , the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Technical Developments

Tools for video error concealment

Wireless video for homeland security applications requires high quality rendition in order to provide a reliable telepresence assessment of critical situations. The tools developed in this project are aimed at enhancing the video quality when corrupted by packet losses. They consist of spatial/temporal error concealment tools that are specifically designed for the ITU-T H.264 video coding standard.
Low Resolution SIF(360x240) HDTV(1920x1080)

Physical layer model of MF underground mine mesh network

Development was completed of a simulation tool for the physical layer of a medium frequency mesh network for underground mines. The tool was used to generate BER/PER performance curves for eventual use by a network simulation tool for underground mines currently under development. Read more here.