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Objectives
The ESA Telecom Start-up Project STICK aims at providing broadband communications capabilities to the Public Protection and Disaster Relief sector.
Once operational, STICK will be a service that can be easily deployed by minimally trained operators, providing a mobile broadband shared network that can be simultaneously accessed by multiple users with multiple applications fully independent from availability of public networks which may collapse when disaster strikes, although it will take advantage of them if they are available to provide lower cost reach-back links to the operations command and control centre.
STICK will deliver scalable on-demand communication capabilities, in the form of broadband wireless access to deployed and roaming subscribers, through a common satellite communications reach-back into the static network. Satcom capacity will be distributed through multi-hop linear topologies of multiple scattered nodes, blanketing any area of emergency relief operations, and operating over unlicensed frequency bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz).
Challenges
The main issue which this project addresses is the difficulty of providing a communications infrastructure that suits to the needs of emergency response teams on the field:
- Easily and quickly deployable by non-expert personnel (firemen, policemen, etc),
- Secure and resilient, even if conventional networks collapse under a major crisis,
- Smart distribution and aggregation of satcom capacity in the incident area (shift bandwidth available on several satellite connections to users on demand),
- End-to-end secure data, VoIP, streaming video services,
- Economically viable, given that there are terrestrial alternatives to these needs, although their coverage and resilience do not fulfil all the requirements of emergency response teams. For this reason, other uses for STICK are being actively sought to achieve a critical mass that makes possible for this start-up to succeed.
Plan
STICK development and trials have a scheduled time-span of 18 months from the start of the project (December 2006). The main phases of the project are:
- Design Specification (Dec 06-Mar 07): Functional and Technical Specification,
- Design and Development (Mar 07-Dec 07): Test bed integration, development of all software modules, Functional Acceptance Test,
- Integration and Deployment (Mar 07-Jun 08): System Integration, Manufacturing of 3 STICKs, Functional and Performance Testing,
- Validation and Field Trials (Oct 08-Nov 08): Field trials with end users,
- Business development (Oct 08-Dec 08): Refining the Business Plan for STICK and gathering interest from potential customers.
Current Status
The design, development and manufacturing of the three STICKs has been performed satisfactorily. The 3 STICKs prototypes have been validated and presented to ESA at the mid-term review (September 2007).
We are currently preparing the trials with the Catalonian firemen that should take place in november 2008. We are also presenting the STICK product to other potential customers. The following figure depicts the STICK prototype being tested on GTD roof. We can appreciate the planar antennae that can communicate with adjacent STICKs up to 3 km away, as well as the omnidirectional antennae that provide wifi coverage to users around the STICK.
We are also evaluating the extension of the product to cover new requirements from the users. We may also develop a “Stick-on-the move” that can be installed on a vehicle and can be used while the vehicle is moving.
