Local Authority and Municipal Operations Download brochure GENERAL System for Local Authority Decision Support (SLADS) is Java application that is included as standard package into the Integrated System to Store and Retrieve Digital Data (ISRDD), which is being procured by AZ Global Research & Engineering Ltd. to Kongsberg Sardegna S.r.l. SLADS may function as part of the ISSRDD system, but may also be operated as stand- alone application. The specific example below corresponds to support of the Sheriff department in the Orange county in Florida. The challenges that Sheriff operations face include: The underwater currents that, when coming close to the beaches, pose life threat. The Sheriff department has to close beaches as such a current approaches to the coast. These currents may be detected from Earth Observation satellites; The thunderstorms and other weather conditions also require Sheriff's action; The traffic conditions are very important for dispatching help and for another operations;  In some cases low-flying airplanes and/or helicopters may be used to assist the operations. Data from these vessels have to be delivered in the real time; The basic reference data about roads, buildings, wildlife areas, and sensitive objects (like nuclear power plant) are critical for informed decision-making; Distress calls and messages has to be processed quickly; Finally, some sea vessels (particularly small ones) frequently practice dumping waste right in the sea instead of properly disposing them. Confirming and preventing of these environment violations, requires real-time data feed from remote buoys, as one of the options. . SLADS Role SLADS shall be used in traditional SCADA (System to Collect and Archive Data) function to handle multiple sensors and sensor networks, as well as notification sources, but also supports importing of satellite images, of weather data, is enriched with modeling capabilities and supports data sharing, electronic notification and reporting. Principal new functionality that SLADS provides is real-time simultaneous visual display of data from different sources, real-time analysis and customizable remote and local access to raw and situation data. Satellite imagery is used as primary situation analysis and data integration resource. SLADS may be used by authorities at different levels of responsibility, ranking from individual emergency response units (fire-, medical and other response units) and up to municipality, county, state/province, etc. In particular, SLADS may be used to: Generate real-time display of current situation Monitor traffic and infrastructure Monitor weather, environment, air quality, tap and technological water supply, etc. Issue notification(s) about approaching over-limit and dangerous conditions of specific monitored objects of the local infrastructure, or of specific areas and locations Issue weather, environment, air and water quality, and other alerts Identify the areas of impact of severe weather, natural and technological disasters Assess humanitarian, health and economic impact of natural or technological disasters Examine “what if” or training scenarios Deliver data to remote locations and to individual response teams Maintain public awareness (optional) trough automatically updated website. SLADS Operation SLADS has to be connected to the local sensor networks, to the call center and has to have established link to the source of satellite or aerial images to operate to its full capacity. None of these data sources however is critical for SLADS operation, and it may be operated in reduced regime or may even be used only to examine “what if” or training scenarios without being connected to any external data sources. AZ Global Research & Engineering Ltd. has developed technical demonstrator of SLADS operation, using some data from Citrus County that is located at the Florida “Panhandle” area in the USA. This Demonstrator (Demo) includes network of surf sensors, model of the ocean (Gulf of Mexico) currents derived from the satellite data, local weather data, road USA 19, patrolling aircraft, water quality sensor and radiation sensor in vicinity of the Crystal River nuclear power plant. One of the surf sensors (buoys) and patrol aircraft are equipped with still cameras, while road, weather monitoring and local beach area are also equipped with web cameras. Demo application collects data from the sensors, feeds in still and streaming images, analyses weather conditions, and uses all these data (excerpt for local still and streaming imagery) to generate the recommendations to the authorities in regard to opening, closing or restricting beaches for the public access (in relation to incoming weather or possible dangerous rift currents), and also to restrict or permit recreational boating, etc. Principal Situation Display Principal Situation Display (SLADS PSD) is presented at the Fig.1. Figure 1. Principal Situation Display for SLADS. Left panel of PSD presents raw data from the sensors in the field. User can bring up raw data from any field sensor. Central part of the display presents actual situation and components of the system. State of the components is reflected by the color of correspondent markers and lines. Monitored area of the beaches is shaded green, that indicates safe conditions for swimming and for boating. This beach condition is derived from data about rift current, about thunderstorm in the area, and about water quality, in real time and using preset limits and built-in analysis model. Right side of the screen presents states of the objects of the system, and results of modeling calculations. User can browse through the entire system and bring up data for any system’s component, or for entire system. All thee parts of the screen are completely independent, e.g. data for three objects may be viewed simultaneously. Viewing Specific Objects SLADS-PSD also allows user to bring up images, drawings or other static visual information that is associated with the objects that are included in the system. The following Fig.2 presents thermal profile of the potential rift current, derived from the satellite data. Orange (“moderately dangerous”) contour of the impacted area is derived from the satellite data and is reflected both on the PSD and on the current-related image. Figure 2. Rift current data derived from satellite measurements. User also has an opportunity to bring in large-scale weather picture for the current area, usually available from NOAA satellites (Fig.3). Figure 3. Low-resolution weather image of the rift current area, viewed simultaneously with satellite-based model. User can certainly bring up technical drawings and images of other objects of the system (Fig. 4): Figure 4. Patrolling aircraft image and drawing. Viewing Streaming Data User can bring up streaming or static frequently updated data from the field by clicking on the image of the data source (airplane, weather monitoring system, road webcam) either in the left or in the right top corner of PSD. The following Fig. 5-7 present PSD with datastreams from patrolling aircraft, from weather radar and from the traffic webcam. Figure 5. Datastream from patrolling aircraft, viewed together with aircraft image and engineering drawing.   Figure 6. Live weather radar map broadcasted directly into PSD   Figure 7. Live traffic webcam broadcast into PSD SLADS automatically keeps the record of all incoming data and of the operator’s commands. User has an option to review current data values, and to review data change in alphanumeric and (Fig. 8) chart form: Figure 8. Chart of the surf height over the sampling period.   Notification and Data Sharing SLADS supports both “passive” and “active” data exchange with remote clients. SLADS traces change of all the parameters of and constantly compares them against pre-set warning, dangerous, etc. levels. User has an opportunity to set a list of notification addresses, and as soon as one or more parameters approaches to the “dangerous” value(s), system generates alarm message, and sends it to the listed addresses over e-mail. It is possible to customize the system to pace warning phone calls and also to send text messages to designated stationary or mobile phones. Besides active notification SLADS automatically supports and updates the website (which may be set either to general public, or to restricted access) that allows remote customer to review the entire situation or individual objects, to see raw data and results of analysis, and to log into webcam datastream from remote location(s). Common Features of M2C Products Implemented In SLADS SLADS is developed using M2C technology and, similarly to another applications, it supports seamless integration of 3-rd party models, source code edit “on the fly”, reconfiguration of the system “on the fly”, maintains control points and supports playback. Customer also has a liberty to switch between live datastream and modeled data for each object in the system. Example Application Scenarios 1. Safe use of beaches and boating. Feeding of the output data from sophisticated models of ocean currents that rely on satellite measurements, and of live data about thunder strikes, that are available from weather services, into SLADS allows to monitor the situation at the beaches and in recreational boating areas. Results of SLADS analysis may be used by local authorities to issue timely warnings and to avoid possible loss of life. Including water quality sensor into analysis allows also to reduce risk of food poisoning and of another diseases. 2. Monitoring of Water Pollution, and Enforcement Network of the ocean thermal and surf sensors that is deployed to support current modeling as part of SLADS may also be used to house automated imaging and water probing equipment. Depending on the bandwidth availability imagery may be ether stored locally and retrieved on demand, or may be transmitted in real-time regime. As soon as water pollution is detected, time –referenced images of potential polluter ship may be retrieved SLADS from the memory on the specific buoy or from the server, and transmitted directly to the Coast Guard, or may be used by the Coast Guard if they operate SLADS or operate SLADS remote client. The following Fig.9 illustrates detection of ship’s waste dump by SLADS. Figure 9. Ship dump detection by buoy operated by SLADS 3. Technological or Natural Disaster Recovery The sensor network maintained by SLADS for the Demo includes water quality sensor and dosemeter. This is minimal set of devices that is necessary to issue the first warning about possible radiation or isotope leak. Weather model, that runs within SLADS may be used to predict propagation of radiation and SLADS impact modeling capabilities may be used to make the real-time assessment and prediction of impacted territories and people exposed to the accident. Traffic webcams operated through SLADS may be used to identify the optimal roads for response teams and to optimize evacuation operation, if necessary. Besides that, the website that is maintained by SLADS may be used by field operatives to review “the big picture”, to receive updates on the situation in surrounding areas, to get traffic data and to take educated decisions about the best SLADS also presents location of response teams and vehicles, and their conditions, like in a case of surveillance airplane in the Demo. This information, delivered in a timely way, is priceless in the situation of disaster management.