Bill Lenharth at the controls of CATLab’s "lab-car" along with a number of CATLab team members. Standing from left to right are Barbara Kraft, Andrew Kun, Mike Sandiford, Brett Vinciguerra, Chris Cary, Rong Gao, Michael Martin, Meagan Morrell and John Mock.

Consolidated Advanced Technologies for Law Enforcement

by W.T. Miller

Last fall, UNH and the New Hampshire Department of Safety (NHDS ­ the parent organization of the NH State Police) jointly received a grant from the US Department of Justice to pursue the development and deployment of new computing and wireless data communications technologies for use in police cruisers. This UNH/NHDS collaboration is formally called the Consolidated Advanced Technologies for Law Enforcement Program (the CAT Program). Activities at UNH are primarily located within the newly formed Consolidated Advanced Technologies Laboratory (CATLab), which involves a mixture of people and facilities from the ECE Department and the UNH Research Computing Center (RCC). This reflects the heritage of the CAT Program, which came about as the result of the groundwork performed over a period of about two years by Bill Lenharth (the director of RCC and an ECE research faculty member) and former ECE Department faculty member Jennifer Bernhard. Unfortunately, Jennifer left the University before the fruits of her efforts were realized, leaving others in ECE to benefit. As you may recall, Jennifer Bernhard is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois. She still shows up on the UNH campus now and again, and appears to be doing well in her new career path.

Mobile computing and wireless data access have already been implemented to some degree within various law enforcement agencies and in concept vehicle programs. However these existing mobile data systems generally suffer from two major drawbacks. First, these systems typically involve custom implementations using equipment interconnected in an ad hoc manner, since the individual items were not originally designed with tight integration as an objective. This limits the utility of each developed system to other agencies with different equipment bases and application needs, hampers incremental system enhancement, and drives up system cost. Second, existing systems generally model the mobile data solution as a traditional client-server network application in which the wireless data link simply provides a general purpose network connection between a client mobile computer with limited capability and central data servers with large capacity data storage (similar to browsing the Internet over a telephone modem connection). This client-server paradigm works well in a wired network environment with high bandwidth connections between client and servers. However, mobile data access in public-safety applications generally must be performed over low bandwidth data links (typically in the range of 4,800 ­ 14,400 bits per second, in contrast to the 50,000 bits per second of typical telephone modems, which many home users still consider slow). The low data rate is a major barrier limiting the practical extent to which client-server applications can be successfully implemented. Wireless data bandwidths may improve over the next few years in urban environments with second-generation cellular data systems. However, these new cellular data systems will not be available to statewide or rural agencies in the near-term or mid-term. Even in urban settings where cellular data will be widely available, the performance of cellular data connections will still lag well behind that of traditional telephone modems.

New paradigms for public-safety mobile computing and data access are necessary which provide new and enhanced capabilities to the officer in the field while minimizing the need for wireless data bandwidth. New mobile electronics and mobile computing modules are needed that interconnect using standardized messaging over standardized bus structures in order to provide hardware compatibility across vendors and system configuration flexibility across agencies. Unfortunately, while the application is important nationally, the size of the market for police data communications technology is not sufficient to motivate technology companies to divert internal development resources away from efforts targeting the much larger consumer and business markets. A new integrated operations and communications paradigm will not result from market forces alone.

The Consolidated Advanced Technologies (CAT) Program is addressing these issues. The program combines a laboratory environment (UNH) and a real-world test site (the NH State Police) to develop, evaluate, demonstrate and deploy new technologies and approaches for law enforcement agencies to collect, interpret and exchange information in real time. The emphasis of the CAT program is on promoting and developing solutions that utilize open standards and interfaces at the device and application levels to maximize the portability, compatibility and flexibility of the resulting systems. The technology development, integration and evaluation activities of the CAT program are being carried out in collaboration and/or consultation with vendors of specific components to ensure that the resulting systems will be widely available as off-the-shelf public-safety solutions. The program promotes the view of public-safety mobile units as fully integrated systems at two levels: (1) an integrated system of multiple application-specific devices, local computing and local data storage within each mobile unit; and (2) a system of multiple mobile units integrated across wireless connections with networked data servers and other computing and communications resources. Information that is available in advance (in-state operator’s license and vehicle databases, for example) should reside to the extent possible within the police vehicle in periodically refreshed data storage for field access requiring minimal wireless data bandwidth. Wireless data transmissions should be limited to the extent possible to data that is novel or otherwise changing in real time (emergency dispatch information, for example), or is simply impractical to maintain in local data storage (including data maintained by other states, by the FBI, and so forth).

The activities in the CAT Program support two concurrent tracks: the development and evaluation of new technology, and the deployment of application-ready technology. The two tracks are clearly mutually supportive. Experience gained from the deployment and use of mature technology provides vital guidance to the process of developing and evaluating truly effective new technologies, while the successful development of new technologies provides improved functionality when the new technologies are subsequently deployed. The combination of the laboratory environment provided by UNH with the real-world operational environment provided by NHDS is a major strength of the CAT Program.

A primary portion of the ongoing effort at UNH is intended to develop, evaluate and demonstrate a highly integrated hardware/software system for law enforcement vehicles. This aspect of the CAT Program has been code-named Project 54, after the 1960’s era television show Car 54 Where Are You? The Project 54 system integrates advanced computing and communications equipment in police cruisers. It increases the functionality of the cruiser and puts a wealth of information at the officers’ fingertips. The system emphasizes both hardware and software interconnections based on industry standards and/or open-interface specifications to maximize flexibility and to facilitate progressive upgrades and repairs. Speech is the preferred way of communication in the Project 54 system. The system accepts voice commands and responds using speech. The use of voice commands reduces the need to type into a computer or press control buttons that are not easily accessible. The voice response feature of the system means the officer does not have to shift his or her focus from the outside environment to get feedback from the system.

The Project 54 system provides direct access to central databases through a digital radio, as well as to local databases stored within the vehicle (in-state motor vehicle and operator’s license databases). This reduces the need to talk to a dispatcher who in turn would look up the requested data and radio it back to the car. The system also provides a speech command interface controlling many of the standard functions within the vehicle such as controlling lights, PA and siren, and enabling/disabling in-vehicle security functions.

The position of the cruiser is tracked using a GPS unit. This allows the setup of a computer aided dispatch system as well as the introduction of mapping software in the cruisers. The system includes a device for taking digital fingerprints and a camera. The fingerprints can be traced by accessing the central database. The camera can be used to collect evidence. Finally, the system provides remote access to some of the functions available in the car from outside the car.

During a two-year time span the Project 54 system will progress through three stages: a lab-bench evaluation stage, a "lab-car" evaluation stage, and a final field evaluation stage with systems installed in actual patrol vehicles. These system level tests will in turn be supported throughout the program by device level performance, conformance and interoperability testing, and when necessary by research efforts targeting such issues as the reliability of speech command input in high-noise and high-stress situations, the reliability of high-band VHF digital radio channels, and so forth. Concurrent to the development of the demonstration system hardware, the system software will evolve from basic demonstrations of capability and compatibility towards fully integrated and functional software applications.

Currently, the lab-bench hardware demonstration system and prototype software is being reproduced in a "lab-car". The lab-car is an actual section of a police cruiser that has been cut-down to the portion that includes the dashboard/cowl area and the front seat. This lab-car will allow detailed human-factor engineering studies to be accomplished before field-testing in an actual police cruiser. The lab-car will allow the CATLab team to test components and their design integration with state troopers and local police to evaluate alternative system designs involving ergonomic factors, command input, displays of information and operational characteristics of various components. The lab-car was also made to be portable so it can be used at various trade-shows and conferences to test the Project 54 design on wide audiences of police and safety personnel.

A large group of UNH faculty, staff and students are involved in CATLab activities this summer. The program is directed by RCC Director and ECE research faculty member Bill Lenharth, and ECE faculty members Tom Miller and Andrew Kun. The summer activities include: ECE graduate students Mike Sandiford, Brett Vinciguerra and Anil Chintalapati, and Stratham high school student Chris Cary are working on software design for the system, including speech recognition and speech synthesis functions. ECE undergraduate students Meagan Morrell and John Mock are working along with ECE faculty member Rich Messner on operating system software for the vehicle’s embedded computer, including support for video camera input and digital video recording. ECE undergraduate Mike Martin and ECE faculty member Frank Hludik are developing a programmable interface module to connect equipment with standard serial or parallel digital interfaces to the new industry standard IDB (Intelligent Transportation System Data Bus) automotive serial data bus. ECE graduate student Rong Gao is working with research faculty member Barbara Kraft developing DSP software to decode digital radio signals for radio compatibility testing purposes. ECE graduate student Mike Dalton is developing self-paced interactive web based technical training materials for use by police officers, dispatchers and other public safety personnel who must use the newly developed technologies. ECE graduate student Sahaji Bhosle is working with ECE faculty member Kent Chamberlin developing electromagnetic models to analyze the geographic coverage and noise performance of the NH State Police VHF radio system. Former ECE graduate student Sam Tran (MS, 2000) was one of the first CATLab team members and did much of the embedded computer hardware and operating system integration.

In addition to these activities within the ECE Department, personnel in the UNH RCC are involved in a number of aspects of the program including supporting the CAT program web site (http://www.catlab.unh.edu), developing database access code for use in vehicles, and organizing detailed terrain data for use in the radio modeling.

The CAT Program’s directors within NHDS are Executive Major Fred Booth and Trooper Mark Liebl. For some reason, they are the only program team members who have no problem parking within walking distance of the laboratory facilities in Morse Hall. In spite of some jealousy in this regard at UNH, the UNH and NHDS team members have developed a close working relationship during the first year of the program, resulting in an expansion of the collaborative activities well beyond the scope originally envisioned. The CAT Program is a true success story in terms of NH State and University cooperation.

As was mentioned, one of the CAT Program’s directors at UNH is Bill Lenharth. Bill has been at UNH for a long time, and many ECE alumni may remember him as the Director of the Research Computing Center. However, as a direct result of the collaborations within the CAT Program, Bill decided to formalize his relationship with the ECE Department and has taken on a new role with a joint appointment as both the Director of the UNH Research Computing Center and as an Associate Research Professor in the ECE Department. Bill is well known and respected within UNH, and has a large amount of experience working directly with companies in the computer communications industry on joint RCC/industry projects. The Department is excited about his new role as a research faculty member within ECE (even if he does prefer MACs to PCs).