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NEWS
| april 8, 2004
Engineering
Funds approval due today
One department plans to help local
police better their wireless communication.
By John
Anderson
Contributor to The Shorthornn
Final negotiations on a federal earmark to fund the Computer Science
Department’s development of a wireless communications system
for the Arlington Police Department are to be resolved today.
A team of investigators led by computer science professor Ishfaq
Ahmad will select five or six research assistants from qualified
undergraduates and graduates in the department to help with video
compression and networking for the project, which is in an early
phase.
The proposed system would enable the Arlington Police to communicate
via live audio and video and monitor all police cameras from a central
location. It would increase the ability of police to handle tactical
situations, disasters and officers in distress by enabling a command
post to see through “many sets of eyes,” said Larry
Barclay, Arlington police research and development manager.
Officers now communicate through a chatroom-like feature on their
computers, which is inconvenient when they’re driving, Dr.
Ahmad said.
“You can glean a lot more information through images than
characters on a screen,” Barclay said.
The system will use existing police equipment such as cameras and
network infrastructure, as well as off-the-shelf components but
will require developing software to facilitate the communication,
Ahmad said.
“It’s like conducting an orchestra,” he said.
“We have some of the components. Other components and devices
need to be developed, and the whole thing needs to be orchestrated.”
A $500,000 earmark for the research will boost the level of funding
for the Computer Science Department. For the second consecutive
year, the department has received the most outside funding of any
university department with over $6 million for active sponsored
research.
The sum will help develop a prototype to demonstrate the operational
potential of such a system. It may not be enough for a complete
product, but the team will seek more resources as it develops the
system, Ahmad said.
About a year ago, faculty members conceived of a program, the Institute
for Research in Security, to facilitate research and education focusing
on safety and security. Projects that will fall under its umbrella
are starting to take off, the institute’s planners say.
The institute has a serious partnership with the Arlington Police,
Ahmad said.
Barclay said his department, Research and Development, is the police
contact for the university. Members of the department have attended
several meetings where technologies with potential for development
by the institution have been discussed.
Ahmad was director of the Multimedia Technology Research Center
at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He said the
institute will be a bigger research center than the one he left.
CORRECTION
In this story, the Computer Science and Engineering
Department was incorrectly identified.
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