Space Overlay for Homeland Security Communications and Navigation

L. Jocic, R. Buenneke, J. Fujita, R. Ewart, G. Dildy, D. Ballinger, M. Hobson

Abstract:	The experiences of September 11 and past emergency response exercises with simulated release of weapons of mass destruction have highlighted the need for common situational awareness and uninterrupted connectivity of emergency response teams. Common situational awareness across multiple local, state, and federal public safety agencies responding to an attack requires secure GPS position determination and reporting by responders, and reliable geographic registration of sensor, and coordination and control data. Seamless nationwide connectivity of disaster response and counter-terrorism teams during critical hours of an attack or an epidemic requires a layer of dedicated communications services to augment commercial infrastructure that tends to quickly overload in major emergencies. This paper outlines a concept for spiral development of the U.S. Emergency Response Services (USERS) to augment terrestrial Homeland Security (HS) communications and navigation in emergencies. USERS encompasses a secure positioning service, position reporting, emergency messaging, assured coordination and control voice/data/video, and wireless Internet. The mobile wireless services are intended to provide seamless connectivity across Department of Homeland Security (DHS), local First Responders teams, and DoD land/air/missile defense units and data processing centers. In addition, USERS will enable secure aviation Communications, Navigation, Surveillance (CNS) for civil aviation and FAA. Secure navigation and wireless communications services are needed to ensure uninterrupted and common situational awareness, and integrated Coordination and Control (similar to Command and Control or C2 in DoD parlance) of response and recovery tasks across federal, state, and local public safety agencies. Wireless networks will maintain secure, higher capacity, interoperable, mobile links from emergency response and counterterrorism teams to federal military, intelligence, lawenforcement, and public safety data centers. Approaches for spiral integration of these services in the GPS and Transformational Communications architectures (TCA) are addressed.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2003 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 22 - 24, 2003 Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel Anaheim, CA
Pages:	741 - 747
Cite this article:	Jocic, L., Buenneke, R., Fujita, J., Ewart, R., Dildy, G., Ballinger, D., Hobson, M., "Space Overlay for Homeland Security Communications and Navigation," Proceedings of the 2003 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Anaheim, CA, January 2003, pp. 741-747.
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