Already a market leader in public safety communications, Sepura is continuing to develop innovative feature enhancements to benefit critical communication users. This is being recognised by a number of our largest customers, with recent approvals for the next-generation SC2 series terminals from major European organisations. Sepura’s SC21 hand-portable terminal recently received approval for use on the UK Airwave network, while both the SC21 and SC20 have now received approval from the German BD-BOS public safety digital radio network, ensuring both models and their current software versions are now approved for critical communications use.
Sepura’s SC2 series of hand-portable radios has been specifically designed with the public safety end user in mind. These next generation, smart TETRA radios continue to deliver best-in-class RF performance, offer extensive usability features and are engineered to provide exceptional audio quality in all environments. In addition, Sepura’s unique Water Porting technology ensures that clear communications are maintained even in the most challenging conditions of wet or dust filled environments.
The new generation of handsets also ensures support planning for future use cases, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth functionality to enable connectivity with body-worn or other ancillary devices.
AppSPACE – smart addition of applications to radio fleets
Sepura introduces AppSPACE, a game-changing applications delivery environment for the critical communications sector.
AppSPACE is a new feature in the latest generation Sepura radios including the SC20, SC21 and HTT-500-2 hand-portables, and the MDT-500-2 mobile terminal. This new delivery environment provides a more efficient approach to providing customer-specific applications and enables the delivery of customised applications to radios without any need to change or upgrade firmware. Applications are deployed using Sepura’s Radio Manager fleet management tool, ensuring that the process is simple, and completed in a cost- and time-effective manner.
AppSPACE allows rapid deployment of solutions offering functionality that is custom designed to suit a customer’s particular needs. These primarily take the form of application-based tools which automate manual processes and common critical tasks, ensuring that certain situation-based operations on the radio are enforced. Examples include radio location and geo-fencing, user health monitoring or automatic switching to emergency talk groups.
A key feature of AppSPACE is its ability to support multiple applications running concurrently – either as background tasks or those which involve direct interaction with fleet radio users. Alerts and notifications can be used to ensure that both user and control room are fully aware of critical information.
Through applications that enhance connectivity options, AppSPACE provides the capability to integrate the radio with peripherals including heart rate or oxygen level monitors, intelligent gun holsters and body cameras. It can also be used in conjunction with proximity-based applications and indoor location tracking.
AppSPACE is designed to ensure that critical TETRA radio communication activities are never compromised by any applications added to the radio, ensuring that mission critical performance and security is always maintained.
Applications appear in the standard SC2 menu system making the use of applications familiar and simple for users with minimal training required
The following new application deployments were demonstrated at Critical Communications World:
Biometric monitoring
In conjunction with an application within the radio, Bluetooth enabled biometric devices such as heart rate monitors can be connected to the radio terminal. The application reads the data from the attached device and displays it on the radio screen while also sharing the data with the control centre. Alerts can also be configured for a pre-set minimum & maximum heart rate to alert either control or the radio user if these pre-set standards are exceeded. This can be particularly important in keeping workers safe and ensuring swift responses to any individuals requiring medical attention.
Users can connect devices such as heart monitors – an alert can sound when their heart rate moves beyond pre-set limits
Proximity
Proximity applications can sound alerts should devices become separated from the user. These tags may be attached to critical objects such as guns, smartphones or vehicle keys and can trigger alerts to the user if they are more than a pre-set distance from the object. A critical example would be a situation in which a gun is unholstered or separated from its owner. In this scenario, the radio alerts the user that they have lost proximity with the critical object.
Indoor location
Indoor Location enables accurate tracking and resource management in indoor environments. The application scans for Bluetooth beacons and reports the closest beacon found. This functionality can help both the user in locating themselves and also enables a control room to track a user’s whereabouts and movements whilst indoors and out of GPS coverage. The location information is sent to a backend server, which enables it to be processed and displayed on a map. This tracking facility can enable effective monitoring of workers both for safety and for improving efficiencies.
Email sales@sepura.com to find out how AppSPACE can enhance your fleet functionality.
