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Public safety and security incident management depends on legacy Land Mobile Radio (LMR) and limited data communication that can't meet the current need.

We can and must do better. Protecting the public and providing security is the primary role of governments at all levels. Whether it is routine police, fire, and paramedic operations, or being prepared to handle civil unrest, extremism, and natural disasters, first responders need reliable and secure communications and access to critical information that will save lives. But why expend scarce public safety resources on augmenting legacy narrow-band land mobile radio (LMR) technologies that originated in the 20th century, when modern wireless broadband technology has been around for more than a decade? As the complexity of global threats to our societies continues to increase, how long will governments allow this technology gap to continue?

Maritime mines are one of the most cost‐effective weapons in the naval arsenal. They deny access to coastal zones, thereby seriously impairing the effectiveness of surface and subsurface assets. For this reason, most navies have fleets of mine countermeasures vessels (MCMVs) designed for the six steps of a classic detection, classification, localization, identification, re‐acquisition, neutralization (DCLIRN) response. But the challenges of the underwater environment can make a typical MCM mission extremely time‐consuming and error‐prone. Furthermore, most of the steps require proximity to the mine itself, which is dangerous for the MCMV and its crew. As a result, most navies are turning to underwater robots for DCLRIN missions.

The most fundamental characteristic that differentiates a Tactical Internet (TI) from a standard internet is its core mobility: it cannot rely on any other elements of the TI to be present or at the same location for a significant period of time. While it can use fixed infrastructure and can even be connected to the commercial Internet, the protocols that underpin it cannot assume the presence of such infrastructure. Therefore, it must be able to adapt to situations where the paths between networks are constantly changing. To properly leverage Internet‐based applications, military organizations need a solution that is tailored to operate within the context of a TI. The ideal solution should provide reliable data delivery by connecting the low bandwidth tactical edge network to the higher bandwidth core network. Most importantly, it must consolidate must‐have networking features into an easy to manage network appliance designed and qualified for use in space constrained tactical vehicles.

The multiple independent sensors on board today's fixed‐ and rotary‐wing platforms deliver more useful information to operators continuously and in real time. Therefore, operators must be able to view all the information in real time to make tactical assessments and provide accurate and useful situational awareness intelligence to in‐field personnel and commanders. Adding displays or increasing the number of operators is often not feasible and partially integrated systems create additional complications. A fully integrated solution built around common workstations that leverage information layering techniques provides operators with complete control of intelligence information.

To be effective in the future, Canadian public safety and security personnel need completely interoperable communications networks, which leverage current and emerging hardware, software, analytical tools and end user applications to enable continuous, real-time, in-field access to critical information. A truly Canadian interoperable public safety network can be created by leveraging current governance frameworks, technology interoperability and analytical tools, and the best practices of all agencies. Implementation should complement existing governance, processes and technologies and capitalize on new technologies as they emerge. This will enable individual agencies to deploy and use more advanced tools for their geography and establish the processes that will enable interoperability as needed with other agencies including those in the United States.

With so many disparate sources of situational intelligence available from coastal waters, maritime security operators are often overwhelmed by a tsunami of critical information. To manage this massive amount of intelligence information and establish true maritime domain awareness, maritime agencies need a system that will streamline the flow of intelligence from all sources. The system must be designed to process information quickly and efficiently to enable effective analysis and decision making by multiple maritime security agencies. The CoCommand solution provides operators contextual visualization of a maritime area based on human‐centered design principles. It is built on complete sensor and information fusion on a single master domain data management framework. This single, integrated framework provides a complete and accurate, near real‐time picture of any maritime situation based on synthesized data from all sources - satellite, terrestrial, radar, reference, contextual, and predictive. It also enables multi‐layered analysis of a variety of intelligence data, including signals, imagery and human intelligence.

Although many military organizations have developed system standards, there is no real solution to the network and system integration challenge on land combat vehicles. The ideal solution must enable a vehicle to fight and move more effectively while leveraging the power of all the disparate, independent systems on board. It must integrate seamlessly with and leverage the power of a networked command and control environment, and effectively integrate with the voice and data communications systems used by dismounted personnel. This can only be achieved with an intelligent, integrated and scalable vehicle electronic architecture (VEA) that incorporates hardware, software and in‐vehicle and dismounted human resources for complete operational effectiveness on the battlefield.

The manufacturing of electronic components offers defense organizations the last opportunity to ensure a product meets specified quality and operating standards. Once it leaves the manufacturing floor and moves to system integration, any defects or deficiencies will affect overall system performance, the capabilities of the platform itself and, potentially, personnel safety. But even though manufacturing is the last step in the product development process, it should be one of the first considerations. Manufacturing quality requirements should factor into product definition and should be carefully adhered to when a component moves from the engineering table to the assembly line floor. Therefore, specifications should go beyond where and how the product will be manufactured and the overall manufacturing cost. Consideration should be given to how well the manufacturing process is aligned and integrated with product development and engineering processes, and the rigor or thoroughness of the product test structure needed to meet reliability requirements.

Prior to the 1980s, military organizations had internal teams dedicated to managing every aspect of Inservice Support (ISS) for all platforms. Throughout this period, most of these teams struggled with three major challenges associated with sustaining effective ISS: a responsive supply chain, available engineering services, and effective training. These challenges still exist today and, to truly address these challenges, military organizations need a single integrated ISS program, which provides access to engineering and logistics support capabilities that can be applied to overall platform life cycle support requirements, addressing the key noted challenges. This can only be achieved with an ISS program built on performance?based management principles, which monitor and adapt to product sustainability measures in real time to meet operational readiness objectives.