No One Can Take a Bite Out Of This BIG APPLE

NYPD realizing they have been hit twice by terror attacks and have uncovered multiple plots that did not transpire have formed their own Counter Terror Team.  The video does and excellent job of reviewing it’s formation and uncovers a compelling topic

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgJJTZ76LzI&sns=tw

With the worldwide terror community knowing that NYC is a tough target might they not start looking at other major U.S. cities? This means each city will need to form a like task force and when formed all units will need to keep updating and morphing technology to fit the new asymmetrical threats generated by terror cells of all persuasions . In essence every major city will need to have a DOD type surveillance and security plan. In the past a city would think of new squad cars and perhaps a radar device. Now these organizations will need to be up to date and thinking about cameras of all types, video analytics, video servers, chem/bio sensors,UGV’s,UAV’s,helicopters and Human Social Cultural Behavior schemes. One company that provides enabling technology for these types of applications is D-TA Systems (www.d-ta.com). Started by industry legend, Dr. Dipak Roy this group has a vast amount of enabling technology for the types of surveillance applications that will be required to support the standing up of municipal counter terror groups.

D-TA Systems pioneered 10 Gigabit Sensor Processing – a new network-centric approach to sensor processing applications such as COMINT/SIGINT/ELINT, software radio, radar, acoustic, RF Test & Instrumentation etc.  These are indeed the building blocks for establishment of a municipal counter terrorism force

Benefits of this architecture:

·         Multiple 10 GigE links forms a digital backbone that provides scalable digital output at line speed and hence high bandwidths and channel counts 

·         Coverage of the RF/IF frequency range from 20 MHz to 6 GHz with instantaneous bandwidths from 40 MHz to over 1 GHz per channel.

·         Internal architecture for multi-channel reconfigurable and programmable RF, IF and digital processing

·         Very high level of scalability of RF/IF channels and recording storage – from a single channel to 100s of channels, eg  phased array radar.

·         Separation of analog and digital functions yields much better signal performance than bus-based systems

·         Channel synchronization is assured as well as precise channel alignment – multiple channels in single unit and across multiple boxes

·         Applications Ready Modular Subsystems gives you a turnkey development environment

·         Very fast scalable data recording at over 1600 MB/sec sustained for a single unit –scalable to higher transfer rates for larger systems

·         Customizable for deployment

An Embedded Graphics & Video Tracking Treasure House

If you want to find the best one stop shop for your graphics and video tracking needs check out the offerings from Vision4ce

http://vision4ce.com/

My personnel favorites are solution sets targeted at sea,land,and fixed sites for 360 defense scenarios.Think if the U.S.S. Cole had been deployed with  Ship Sentry

http://vision4ce.com/?solutions

If you were a GE Embedded Computing / SBS Technologies G-2 user or any of the graphics capabilities presented by Radstone or the companies acquired by Curtiss Wright please consider and upgrade. Today’s threats require an even more robust degree of situational awareness and scalability. The modular approach of Vision4ce products allow for this approach.

Alternative Power: Potential Green Wave Plays

Much has been written about Alternative Power sources and the promise of a less oil dependent world. Great attention both politically and environmentally is paid by the media and society in general.  Despite the hype some scientific facts exist.  When you combine fuel with oxygen you can chemically generate electricity without combustion. You do have power tough which ultimately is the end game. One group that is leveraging the concept of allowing their fuel cells to run off of available fuels such as coal, JP-8, and diesel is CellTech Power:

http://www.celltechpower.com/technology.htm

The advantage of this approach is profound for military applications and commercial ones where devices need to run on portable power devices. A feature of this approach is being flexible as emissions regulations evolve and technology scales to those metrics. Their website listed above provides a great tutorial on fuel cells in general. It’s one of the best I’ve seen.

Another group that is coming at the fuel cell game a little differently is Lynntech. They are creating electrochemical power supplies and hydrogen generation modules for a variety of platforms including UAV’s, and medical devices. See a description of their work at:   http://www.lynntech.com/company.htm

Embedded Computing Provides Foundation & Path to Deployment

In order to deploy the types of systems that would revolve around fuel cell power in any form embedded computing resources would be a must. Whether they control the medical, military or industrial device or platform taking advantage of the alterative power scheme the advantages and need for energy management and harvesting will be manifested by various types of embedded computing schemes. These forms could be data acquisition ,graphics,dense processing or even cloud based. Certainly in many cases very rugged packaging of the computer platform would be an asset. One such group with a very versatile product line that lends itself nicely to alternative power applications is Arbor Embedded Computing.  See their portfolio at: http://www.arbor.com.tw/as/product.aspx

In order to manage these fuel cell applications within their designated platforms visual user interfaces will need to be created. This is especially true for any vehicle related “dashboard” . The aircraft industry with their “glass cockpit” smart display approach as taken great advantage of graphics and animation. These schemes are now moving into ground based vehicles both military and commercial. As they manifest themselves a greater and greater dependency on graphics and video will naturally occur. Think about the timeline from the car radio to the eight track to the DVD to now social media via cell phones and smart devices plugged into the vehicle. The acceleration with each breakthrough has been profound. One group that brings a force multiplier to this vetronics space, http://proceedings.ndia.org/3570/session6/Vetronics by virtue of past experience in cockpit and ground vehicle support applications is, Animated Media Inc. through their versatile  VGK package  http://www.animatedmedia.ca/products/vgk-platform  offers platform systems integrators on the commercial side to develop an ecosystem for revenue generation and on the military vehicle side a way to enhance situational awareness through the combination of sensor inputs in real time with stored data enhanced with social media aspects that leverage the www.   This link touches on some of these issues.

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/index/display/article-display/0866344659/articles/military-aerospace-electronics/volume-22/issue-9/special-report/high-value-ventronics-robotics.html?cmpid=EnlMAEOctober52011

Surveillance 360

I posted recently about a great real time world feed on various types of incidents around the world.

http://www.globalincidentmap.com/threatmatrix.php

Gets you to the site where you can see great interactive maps related to all types of events.

Surveillance 360

I discussed in a past post

New Buoy Seeks To Boost Security

New Buoy Seeks To Boost Security

Drug Cartels : The New Player

The 1920’s & 30’s was an era of prohibition and the growth of organized crime in America. The new millennium has spawned a larger threat that revolves around the  organized Drug Cartels. A must read that covers this topic thoroughly has hit the street. Ms. Sylvia Longmire a former USAF officer and government intelligence analyst has leveraged her experience to spin a compelling story.

Go to the Amazon link below and order this book now.

This blog would appreciate comments on how one would look to leverage technology for the detection and containment for Cartel activities.