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Mobile Broadband for Emergency and Safety Applications

(MESA)


www.projectmesa.org


Project MESA
1
represents a revolutionary step beyond the scope of the currently available and
ongoing cellular telephony evolution.

The Project is the response to the growing demand for new a suite of standardized wireless
technologies - covering bit rates well beyond 2 Mb/s - within public services such as public safety, law
enforcement, emergency and medical services and the Civil Defense segments.

Currently applied systems and implementations vary from country to country, within countries and
between the various types of public services. Project MESA from the very beginning aims at producing
market relevant technical specifications that reach out to a world market for a standardized wireless
mobile broadband platform, for all kinds of such services.

Within Project MESA, market relevance is achieved by inviting users and their organizations to play a
focal role in the specifi cation and harmonization of requirements before the technical specification
efforts are introduced. MESA represents the first such international initiative within the ICT Sector to
put the user in the driver seat.

Since public fixed and wireless network infrastructures and satellite technologies evolve and converge,
convergence with public service systems and applications may also be part of the scenarios to address.

I. BACKGROUND OF PROJEC T MESA
The fact that there exists a still widening capability gap between telecommunications technologies in
the service of public protection agencies and in the hands of instigators of organized crime and
terrorism is one of the drivers for the joint elaboration of a new advanced mobile broadband
communication technology. Other drivers are the growing demand for standardized mobile broadband
services within telemedicine, fire-fighting, mobile robotics and Civil Defense.

Suppression of organized crime and terrorism, emergency operations on international waters, etc., not
only needs cooperation between the different public services within a country but also between
countries. This underlines the need for national, regional and global solutions, while maintaining
service and national integrity and information security.

Project MESA was created to address these needs, in the form of an international partnership aiming at
a set of globally accepted standards for globally applicable implementations. It is the first international
partnership where industry cooperates with users and user organizations to define the requirements for
wireless broadband technologies and systems that meet these needs.

An aspect of the scope of the Project is here presented via a few examples of service scenarios.

1
MESA is a standardization Partnership Project within the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) area established
between the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) of the United States of America and the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) of Europe with the purpose of elaborating a joint specification of Mobile
Broadband Technology to be deployed in the service of the Police, International Crime and Terror combating, Intelligence,
Emergency and Medical Services, Fire fighting and Civil Defense. MESA stands for Mobility for Emergency and Safety
Applications. Please refer to the www.projectmesa.org for further information.





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II. REMOTE PATIENT MONITORING

An important aspect of crisis -and disaster
management is the effectiveness of
frontline medical assistance to injured
persons. Timely and correct treatment of
patients is of the utmost importance for
the success of later recovery.

The concept of remote patient monitoring
is subject of intense studies in the
Emergency and Medial (EMS) sector as
well as within Civil Defense, but has in
any case to apply a reliable and very high
capacity wireless mobile technology in
order to address some vital activities on
the scene of incidence.

First aid is assisted by a wireless
broadband technology allowing for the
remote on-line monitoring of basic
medical parameters such as: blood
pressure, cardiac activity,
encephalographic data and body
temperature. Two-way voice and video is streamed onto the patient data to keep the crew connected to
the remote medical expertise.

It is evident that also Civil Defense services contain a wide variety of applications within this class of
services.
III. MOBILE ROBOTICS
Another area of interest in the field is
mobile robotics. This is a subject of intense
study in both the public safety and military
sectors.

Implementations depend upon application
of a highly reliable and broadband wireless
technology.

Robots designed in both micro- and macro
scale may be used to assists such
applications as

o Rescue of people from hazardous
areas
o Automated inspection of non-
accessible areas
o Anti terrorist actions
o Land mine clearing

The wireless technology applied in this
field has for obvious reasons to be
Remote Patient Monitoring Remote Patient Monitoring
Mobile Microscale Robots Mobile Microscale Robots



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designed with special attention to jamming and interception and a very high reliability is required. All
these aspects will be duly dealt with in the Project work.

IV. THE MESA FIREFIGHTER
A whole new class of advanced
services and applications has been
identified during the initial stages
of the Project.

These services and applications
will reduce the personal risk for
firefighters setting their lives at
stake to rescue persons caught
within a tall building on fire (One
of the most challenging and
dangerous scenario facing the
modern firefighter is a fire in a tall
building, a high-rise blaze).

Most of the new services will be
based on the application of
wireless technology capable of
supporting very high data rates.

The MESA firefighter dresses up
with a whole range of detectors, capturing relevant parameters online to allow the site manager to have
the full picture of the situation for all firefighters on the scene.

Vital parameters such as respiratory and heart rate, blood pressure and body surface temperature, along
with the high resolution video-streaming signals from both the visible light and IR sensitive cameras,
help managers take decisions on site.

Part of this is also an accurate three-dimensional positioning for determining the exact indoor location
of the firefighter (This alone represents a major technological challenge).

In the reverse mode, the firefighter will
be provided with video and audio
information guiding him in his work in
smoke filled rooms and other hardly
navigable environments.
V. ELEVATED BACK-HAUL
GATEWAYS

Special requirements for applications
involving surveillance aircraft are
needed. This represents yet another
challenge for the technical solutions of
the Project MESA radio technology.

Conferencing facilities may be crucial,
when several kinds of community
services are involved in the operations.


The MESA Firefighter The MESA Firefighter

Full on-site Command Control and Communication Full on-site Command Control and Communication



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The progress of technologies, which package and embed audio and video within Secure IP, will be
exploited to offer voice communications as a natural part of the menu of services.

It is evident that the bandwidth required to support all these services is substantial. Coding strength and
built-in Quality-of-Service mechanisms must ensure a very reliable link, something that further adds to
the bandwidth requirement.

One of the other key challenges for the technical work is to specify spectrum efficient bearer
technologies.

Interoperation with future
broadband satellite systems and
High Altitude Platform Systems
(HAPS) is a definite requirement in
order to overcome the limited cell
size of a broadband radio system
operating in the GHz frequency
range.

This mode of operation is therefore
an integral part of the study in the
work of allocating the optimum
radio spectrum for the Project
MESA specifications.

An effective standardized wireless
broadband back-haul technology
from remote areas was identified
during the recent 2001 Tampere
Convention on Disaster Relief.

Interconnection to a future
broadband mobile -satellite service
will ensure a stable communication
path from remote areas, where terrestrial infrastructures may be destroyed during natural disasters,
earthquakes, flooding, etc. Vehicle based or portable base stations must be easily deployable in such
situations.

For operations in remote areas, a police car
may carry an integrated broadband satellite
transponder to create an island or hot
spot of wireless broadband coverage
around the scene of incidence. In this way,
police officers may even in very remote
areas utilize their terminals, featuring IP-
based telephony, with two-way video and
iris scanner for fast and reliable suspect
identification.

The combination of broadband capabilities
with full mobility in a wider area
environment is a key element of the
proposed Project MESA specifications.

A Back-haul gateway in space A Back-haul gateway in space


GLOBAL INTERNET
RESIDENTIAL
ACCESS POINT
WIDE-AREA
MOBILE TERMINAL
CORPORATE
INTRANET
BATTLEFIELD
MOBILE
TERMINAL
LOCAL-AREA
MOBILE
TERMINAL
AD-HOC
NETWORK
I N-HOME
MOBILE
TERMINAL
Figure 6 Wireless infrastructure and ad-hoc networking
Wireless infrastructure and Ad-hoc networking


GLOBAL INTERNET
RESIDENTIAL
ACCESS POINT
WIDE-AREA
MOBILE TERMINAL
CORPORATE
INTRANET
BATTLEFIELD
MOBILE
TERMINAL
LOCAL-AREA
MOBILE
TERMINAL
AD-HOC
NETWORK
I N-HOME
MOBILE
TERMINAL
Figure 6 Wireless infrastructure and ad-hoc networking
Wireless infrastructure and Ad-hoc networking



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VI. AD-HOC NETWORKING
The principle of ad-hoc networking for the fast deployable terrestrial infrastructure is a key requirement
from both the public safety and the military sectors.

The ad-hoc networking principle deals with the ability of network components to automatically
establish a functioning network.
It is foreseen to be implemented around a number of wireless nodes which automatically recognize
each other and the support terminals active within range.

A wireless terminal may automatically start to work as a small base node in the absence of a
reachable node. In this way a local system in the battlefield or at the scene if incidence may configure
itself and be self-healing in case one or more nodes are lost.

VII. A VARIETY OF OTHER APPLICATIONS
Various other public safety services require wireless mobile broadband communications. Just a few
examples:

* Airport security: Suspect portrait identification and fast broadcast to staff
* Law enforcement and peacekeeping operations: Remote store evidence gathering
* General air surveillance: High speed air-ground-air video/voice and control linking
* Surveillance and protection of property: Call-a-camera from wireless mobile terminals
Civil: Electronic news gathering applications with embedded voice
VIII. BANDWIDTH POSITIONING
The Project MESA specifications will,
in terms of bandwidth positioning, be
a complement to both existing and
planned broadband wireless standards,
on a segmentation scale in terms of
narrowband, wideband and
broadband.

The combination of mobility and bit
rates above 2 Mb/s is a key
characteristic of these specifications.

IX. TO PUT THE USER IN THE
DRIVER SEAT
Project MESA (Mobility for
Emergency and Safety Applications)
was established by ETSI (the
European Telecommunications
Standards Institute) and TIA (the
Telecommunications Industry
Association (USA)). The
establishment of the Project was only
possible due to an excellent transatlantic cooperation between standards institutes, industry, federal-
and governmental agencies and professional public safety organizations.

It is the first international standardization partnership project to focus on user involvement in the initial
phase of specifying requirements.


Figure 7 Relative positioning of MESA
Bandwidth positioning of MESA

Figure 7 Relative positioning of MESA
Bandwidth positioning of MESA



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Technical specifications will follow the specification of user requirements, but it is obvious that there is
need for many research activities in parallel with this specification work.

Early inputs to the Project emanate from specification activities within APCO (Association of Police
Communications Officials) and its Project P34 Steering Committee as well as the ETSI project DAWS
(Digital Advanced Wireless Services). The Projects frequency allocation scope is in preparation for
the World Radio Conference, to be held in 2003.


X. RESEARCH
An important driver for the establishment of Project MESA in the form of a partnership project is the
large amount of research required to fulfill its scope. It was from the very beginning assessed, that
more than one of the worlds regions should be involved in lifting this burden of basic research.

Examples of where research is needed are to find solutions to the situation when the duration of one
symbol on a radio carrier reaches the same order of magnitude as the dobbler shift introduced by the
relative velocity between transmitter and receiver (leading to difficulty in sustaining synchronization of
the link) and switching of antennas in both of the wireless ad-hoc infrastructures and the mobile
devices.
XI. MORE INFORMATION
Information on Project MESA is available on www.projectmesa.org