Technology Based Communication
Israel Alberto Berrios Jr.
CJS/205
Erin Kirkpatrick
2/22/2016

Technology Based Communication
Every day public safety officials make decisions about communications equipment. Public safety communications is rapidly evolving. Police departments are beginning to use more advanced radio technologies that are digital. These radios have larger capabilities and cost a lot less than analog radio equipment. There is a new radio called cognitive radio that is being used to detect and adjust to changing communications constraints in the field. This automatically changes to the frequencies and interfaces needed. "Cognitive radios react to environment for better public safety communications." (National institute of justice, Dec 11, 2012, para. 1) Radios were once built using analog electronic parts and circuits that handled signal processing. Technology has advanced exponentially over the past few decades with a new era of digital technology. Now a days radios have become more like computers. Another important factor in this digital development is the cost. Digital parts and circuits are much less expensive than analog. Analog can mostly do a few tasks, digital can do multiple tasks as defined as its software. This new cognitive radio will assist law enforcers in the field in many ways. It will be programmed to recognize a particular frequency that has been overloaded with traffic and it will automatically find and switch over to an alternative frequency without the operator doing it manually. The cognitive radio is aware of its own environment, it knows its own capabilities and limitations as well as its operator’s needs. These radios are running under an engine called cognitive engine. A software package that does as many things as a human would do. Allowing law officers to do their primary job. SDR is a type of software that is used by radios in order to control the operating parameters and protocols. This allows the radio to be updated and reconfigured, minimizing the need to change existing hardware. SDR can overcome challenges of incompatible communication systems. Standards, protocols and new functions are all added to radios. Most police radios cannot reconfigure new capabilities, incorporating new communications into agency operations can take decades. SDR technology has the potential to ensure investments and makes sure the department is not limited to solutions for years to come. This SDR technology can be maintained without having to move all users to the new technology at the same time. SDR exists in most public safety radios today but the full potential for this technology has not yet been realized. To make this affordable for law enforcement and other safety organizations, some things must be noticed. The equipment must work towards accommodating different frequency bands. Security, the potential impact of viruses or malicious codes are much greater with over the air reprogramming occurring. "The U.S. Department of Defense has developed SDR standards for all new military radios under the Joint Tactical Radio System." (Equipment, security challenges, Joseph Heaps, Mar 2008, para. 16) Still at question if this is used well for public safety communications. The major benefit of SDR tech for public safety is increased but other benefits include potential cost savings over the life of the radio equipment. SDR allows police departments to upgrade individual pieces of equipment with new features and communications protocols. As well as upgrading an entire communications system, while adding new frequencies as they become available. Something that is available with the cognitive radio is dynamic frequency sharing. This will find and use open frequencies or share channels throughout the radio spectrum. Giving the law enforcement access to more spectrum whenever needed and allow sharing of the public safety channels while idling. During emergency situations, public safety officials will be able to communicate with different agencies, such as, different counties and states. If agencies cannot share information quickly or communicate with each other, time will be wasted and lives could be lost. With the cognitive radio, its power control is used for spectrum sharing to maximize the capacity of secondary users without interference of the primary users. Spectrum sensing detects unused spectrums without interference to other users which is an important requirement to sense empty spectrums. This will be the most efficient way to detect the empty spectrums. With CR technology, unused spectrum are determined and made use of automatically. Several networks standards are interoperated and recognized automatically. It also improves and accomplishes its progress and minimizes interferences. All without the operator having to do it manually. In the future, cognitive radio technology will be permitted to establish and connect to any nearby accessible unused that facilitates with the customer. SDR's can send and receive analog, digital and data voices. In most radios, signal processing near the antenna take place in analog and when near the speaker or microphone it takes place digitally. The manufacturing cost, battery life and the performance all influence where the boundary between analog and digital is. Modern public safety and cell phone radios are at least partly software defined and they use software controlled digital electronic circuits to do most internal processing. They do this with a better performance and with a lower cost. SDR's offer advantages to the public safety community such as, not requiring an expert tuning or adjustment that analog needs. Some military SDR programs give the impression that the tech is complex or expensive. This is due to the costs and complexity of the earlier technology and the technical approach the military took. The software communications architecture is viewed as restrictive and too expensive for public safety applications. Most civilian software do not use SCA. An SDR does most of its signal processing with digital electronics. It works just as a radio always has but is less expensive. A cognitive radio is more aware of its environment and its operator’s needs and privileges. A cognitive radio can adapt to its performance in useful ways and learn the circumstances. Most cell phones are adaptive for example, your phone will try finding a cell site belonging to your service provider. It will connect with that cell site and if it fails to do so, it will find one that it can use under roaming agreement. A cognitive radio in public safety are improving adjustment of radio performance. It can recognize various signals and configure itself to interoperate with them. A police officer for example, is in a building with no public safety radio coverage, the radio will automatically switch to voice over internet protocol mode and reach the dispatcher through a Wi-Fi access point and a telephone line.

Reference page

National institute of justice, Dec 11, 2012, para. 1 retrieved from: http://www.nij.gov/topics/technology/communication/radios/pages/cognitive-radios.aspx

Equipment, security challenges, Joseph Heaps, Mar 2008, para. 16 retrieved from: http://www.nij.gov/journals/259/pages/software-defined-radios.aspx