San Diego’s Wildfires may be drafting their High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN). It supported firefighters in San Diego County earlier this year with an innovative WiFi network. San Diego’s $4 million Homeland Security prototype - WIISARD might be (literally) tested under fire.
The California Department of Forestry deployed more than 1,700 firefighters, 10 helicopters and several bulldozers to battle a blaze this summer. The NSF-funded HPWREN, a Wi-Fi-centric network includes backbone nodes on the UC San Diego and San Diego State University campuses, and a number of “hard to reach” areas in remote environments.
The SDSU campus, closed Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2003 and Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003. San Diego Blog has the latest links and photos.
San Diego is using RIMS (Response Information Management System) to coordinate and manage its response to disasters and other emergencies. An online form details specific information such as the nature of the threat; the area needing the C130s; when the equipment is needed; where it should be delivered; how long it will be used; and a contact name. By filling out the form and sending it up the chain of command, local officials can cut the time needed to get equipment to the scene.
Last month, the HPWREN team installed several real-time data sensors on a Mount Laguna wireless facility. Researchers affiliated with UCSD’s HPWREN and ROADNet, SDSU’s Field Stations Program, and SSC-San Diego’s Crisis/Consequence Management Initiative, deployed nine sensors that will allow for real-time environmental monitoring.
“The deployment of meteorological sensors and imaging equipment throughout the county’s backcountry and remote mountaintops, coupled with real-time access and a user-friendly web interface, will aid in the understanding of weather patterns and help refine meteorological models,” explained Pablo Bryant, SDSU Field Stations Program research technologist. Bryant may not have realized how important those sensors were about to be.
Data collected by these sensors now stream via HPWREN to the San Diego Supercomputer Center and can then be made accessible to desktops throughout the world. To make sense of the raw sensor data, ROADNet researchers have created a data storage system and user-friendly interface that allows for easy access to the real-time information.
At UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering, a $2.3 million grant issued by the National Science Foundation funded HPWREN. The system provides internet access to researchers and schools in remote areas and allows sensors and other monitoring devices to operate without wires or constant support.
In May of 2002 the HPWREN project joined forced to deploy a network of cameras and other sensors to “demonstrate a single monitoring system that could be used simultaneously by academic researchers and agencies as diverse as Caltrans, SPAWAR and the U.S. Coast Guard.
A joint project between UCSD and the Veterans’ Administration Hospital, WIISARD, allows EMTs with PDAs to receive information from the hospital and transmit back so personnel can prepare for patients before they arrive. With WIISARD, DHS can also create regional and national networks-connected to a variety of databases-giving personnel in the field real-time access to information on individuals or vehicles encountered or passing a certain fixed point.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service is getting smart about wireless and raising rates For License Exempt Tower Sites, prompting protests from commercial operators.
A new $100 per month per Wi-Fi location fee, will apply to leasees on sites built on Forest Service land,” said Jim Pace, an LEA member who founded Strategic Information Services LLC in McCall, ID. He noted that the fee does not apply to county or other government users, and that his county decided to follow his company’s 5 GHz paths “and build more expensive, tax-funded data paths for its use, reducing unlicensed spectrum availability and creating competitive networks with ours, while avoiding Forest Service fees.”
The Forest Service Handbook August 2003 Update and Aug. 11 Interim Directive have more (large Word docs).
The Daily Wireless Portland to Seattle Wi-Fi route proposal outlines a system that might save the Forest Service millions of dollars.
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