Satellite links firefighters with spotter plane - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Satellite links firefighters with spotter plane

By Stephen Withers, 0
February 12, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Satellite-links-firefighters-with-spotter-plane/0,130061791,120272008,00.htm

This summer's bushfires in New South Wales and the ACT have been fought with the aid of a satellite communications system developed by a Sydney company.

A Coastwatch Dash 8 plane equipped with a tracking high-resolution video camera, forward looking infrared radar (FLIR), high power conventional radar and a still digital camera was diverted from its usual coastal patrol duties to pinpoint fire hotspots.

The Eye In The Sky system allowed live images to be transmitted from the plane in real time via a 128K link using Inmarsat's Swift64 satellite communications service. The images were relayed to the National Surveillance Centre in Canberra, where firefighters could effectively see through the smoke to identify the current position of the fires.

Emergency services personnel were also on board the aircraft to provide advice to the crew and visually monitor the fires. Eye In The Sky developer TC Communications specialises in creating applications operating over Inmarsat, and also provides high-speed mobile data services to the Australian Defence Forces and police services.

"We put together the entire system from the plane to the ground," said chief executive officer Todd McDonell. He said the system was useful for applications with "any sense of urgency", such as directing land or sea rescues as well as surveillance.

While it is not part of the current product, the company is able to transmit images from an aircraft to a ship and simultaneously to a land station.

Development of a 'man pack' version of the system is almost complete: "Drop a guy on the beach almost anywhere in the world and he can get a live [video] feed from the aircraft," said McDonell.

Other recent projects include the tracking system for the 2002 Sydney-Hobart race and a system that allows the NSW Fire Service to see the location of its fire trucks.