VoIP Gateways

With all the instances of school shootings and acts of terrorism in the past few years, the world can sometimes feel like a decidedly scary place—and to a certain extent, it is. In many situations, staying safe requires a heightened level of observation, often referred to as “situational awareness.”

Wikipedia defines “situational awareness” as “the perception of environmental elements within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future.”

If that sounds like a lot for a human being to do, it’s worth noting that technology can play a key role in keeping us safe without requiring so much time and energy that we’re unable to carry on our daily activities.

An example of this is a new surveillance, collection and intelligence distribution platform that uses mobile video technologies to deliver real-time situational awareness. The solution includes components from Patton Electronics, V.C.O.R.E. Solutions and Qtags.

Patton’s (News - Alert) contribution to the system is Visuality, a mobile video system that provides live, encrypted securely transmitted to command and control departments using standard cell network infrastructure. It’s designed for integrated surveillance, collection and distribution of intelligence.

Visuality, which delivers real-time situational awareness, was developed in partnership with the U.S. government’s Technical Support Working Group and the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office.

V.C.O.R.E.’s contribution to the system is fourDscape, a four-dimensional browser from Balfour that enables automated situational awareness for human interaction, analysis and response. All of this is integrated into what V.C.O.R.E. calls a “4 dimensional landscape.”

The fourDscape solution is intended for deployment in emergency preparedness, rapid response and homeland security environments.

Qtag’s contribution to the system is GuestAssist, an enterprise-to-customer, mobile phone-based communications solution designed to help service organizations enhance the experience they provide for guests.

In a November 3rd report, TMCnet.com Ed Silverstein explained that the integrated system enables Patton’s Command service to communicate with the fourDscape visualization platform using an application-level interface.

“The unified system incorporates information streaming from real-time cameras (body-worn, or located in a backpack unit or mobile security vehicle) within the VCORE Common Operating Environment,” Silverstein said. “The Patton-VCORE solution transforms mobile-borne assets into ‘eyes’ whose view is displayed in a real-time virtualization.”

Silverstein continued: “Patton's systems provide instantaneous feedback, which the fourDscape Common Operating Environment intelligently orchestrates and presents, enabling security personnel to respond quickly and accurately.”

The capabilities of this integrated solution has a lot of potential to make the world a safer place.

To learn more about the new situational awareness system, and other next-generation communications solutions, visit Patton’s TMCnet.com VoIP Gateways channel.