This proposal will support a collaboration between Boston University, CapWIN, and Harvard University to better understand how to deploy first responder applications that allow situational awareness and global coordination in a dynamic wireless mobile environment. The specific objective of this project is to demonstrate an ability to deploy a wireless based sensor application within CAPWIN's infrastructure. A second objective is both to define the requirements and to propose a solution that would incorporate additional sensors including chemical or environmental detectors, into this wireless sensor application as well as to illustrate the exchange of this sensor data with other CAPWIN applications. Finally, the third objective will be to explore and develop a strength and weakness analysis of CAPWIN's current architecture and suggest a more scalable and robust architecture for the CAPWIN infrastructure.
Broader Impact
CAPWIN is one of the largest and most important deployments of an integrated wireless network in the public sector. Its operational success has demonstrated both the ability and value of providing transparent connectivity across a diverse set of first response organizations including police, fire and ambulance. CAPWIN also serves another vital purpose for the emergency response community - that of a platform for learning and organizational innovation. Based on the philosophy of open systems and a standards-based architecture, CAPWIN enables a mechanism or test bed to assess products and services that can lead to complex, process-based innovations. In short, it is an organizational platform that allows a timely assessment and, if proven valuable, a rapid integration of an emerging product or service into operations. Most importantly, CAPWIN can provide this integrative capability without imposing narrow restrictions on any given user organization or product innovator.
Intellectual Merit
The academic research of the above project will: (1) explore the value of the CAPWIN infrastructure as a test-bed for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of emerging technology (such as wireless sensors) when it is deployed in highly dynamic and distributed application environments (such as Emergency Services); (2) provide a specific evaluation of the use of a Mote based wireless sensor network as a means to track and monitor the conditions of individuals or the environment during an emergency response event; (3) assess lessons learned and emerging design principles of using the CAPWIN infrastructure in the context of: (a) how to enhance the innovation of services to the first responder community, (b) how to deploy, evolve, and then determine the likely benefits of a wireless sensor network for tracking and monitoring in a dynamic and distributed context; (4) investigate the advantages of a distributed, scalable, and robust architecture for CAPWIN infrastructure at both the sensor network layer and the application transport layer.
