Wireless Adventures

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Mon, 31 May 2021 12:45:00 -0700

Uncle Mac of The Greatest Generation

When I was a kid my dad had a best friend from his early days as a CPA, Lamont G. Mac Donald, or as I knew him "Uncle Mac". My dad and Uncle Mac were both returning from WWII and went to college on the GI Bill to get accounting degrees. My dad served in the Navy as an Ensign on an LST in the Pacific. You can see more about my dad in an earlier blog post. Uncle Mac was a Captain the Army in Europe.

This is the story of Uncle Mac. I never knew about any of this until Uncle Mac died at the age of 86 and we went to his funeral at San Joaquin National Cemetery in Santa Nella, when a man I had known for 50 years ended up being exposed as the greatest hero I have ever known.

Let me apologize for not having any photos of Uncle Mac. I probably have some in storage somewhere. So the photos attached are for example, not actually him. Also, I only have my fading memory to recall the citation which was read at Uncle Mac's funeral as to the events that lead to his Silver Star for valor and Purple Heart for injuries sustained. I have requested his service record from the National Archives, but not sure what I will get.

Lamont G. MacDonald "Mac" was born on June 23, 1921, in Kanab, Utah near St George. He was raised by his father Graham and mother Emily in a Mormon family on his family ranch, which stayed in their family through his passing. He had 5 brothers and 3 sisters. I don't know much about his family.

There was an interesting reference to him working in the suppers as a grocery clerk and a chauffer for movie executives filming in Kanab before joining the army. He went to Kanab High School and to BAC College for three years. There is also mention that he went on a 2 year mission to Texas for the Mormon church.

He enlisted in the Army in June 1942. He went to Camp Callan near San Diego for basic training, and then to Camp Davis North Carolina for Officer Specialist School, and finally Camp Benning GA for Infantry training. He was first assigned to the Coast Artillery and then after Infantry School transferred to the 289th Infantry Regiment, 75th Division. He was assigned a platoon as their 2nd Lieutenant.

In June 1944 he and his unit flew to England, moved down to Wales, then sailed across the English Channel to land in Le Havre France, only to march up to Belgium where they were to start their combat with the Germans as "Green Soldiers". They had little experience.

It was now December and the 289th was part of an offensive with the Germans that was scheduled to happen on Christmas Eve.

This web site describes the macro situation in pretty good detail.

And this time line shows the overall view of the events leading up to that night.

Battle of the Bulge Timeline

11 Dec 1944	Adolf Hitler held a meeting with top German military commanders at the Adlerhorst headquarters in Wetterau, Germany, stressing the importance of the upcoming Ardennes Offensive.
16 Dec 1944	German troops launched Operation Wacht am Rhein, crossing the German border toward Belgium, opening the Battle of the Bulge.
16 Dec 1944	A German officer carrying several copies of Operation Greif (the codename for Otto Skorzeny's infiltration of "fake Americans" to cause confusion ahead of the Ardennes Offensive) was taken prisoner and the treacherous plan was revealed.
17 Dec 1944	150 prisoners of war of US 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion were massacred by Waffen-SS forces at Malmédy, Belgium. Only 43 survived.
18 Dec 1944	The German offensive in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium began to stall after Americans began to fight back.
19 Dec 1944	Germans captured 9,000 surrounded US troops in the Schnee Eifel region on the Belgian-German border. Meanwhile, the US 101st Airborne of the Allied reserves and 10th Armored Divisions of the US Third Army were sent to Bastogne to hold the vital road junction in Belgium.
20 Dec 1944	Armored elements of German 6.SS-Panzerarmee captured Stavelot, Belgium, capturing the US fuel supply stored there for their own use.
21 Dec 1944	US forces captured Stavelot, Belgium, while the Germans surrounded Bastogne and captured St. Vith.
22 Dec 1944	In Bastogne, Belgium, the German surrender demand is rebuffed by General McAuliffe with the famous response "Nuts!"; meanwhile, the US Third Army shifted its axis of advance in attempt to relieve Bastogne. In Germany, Rundstedt suggested a tactical withdrawal, but the suggestion was refused by Hitler.
25 Dec 1944	US 2nd Armored Division, with British help, stopped German 2.Panzer Division just 4 miles from the Meuse River in Belgium.
25 Dec 1944	A surprise Luftwaffe attack on Bastogne, Belgium bombed Anthony McAuliffe's headquarters and the 10th Armored aid station. The three–storey building collapsed on top of the wounded patients and set the ruins on fire. Nurse Renée Lemaire was killed together with twenty-five seriously wounded patients, burnt to death in their beds. Soldiers rushing to pull away debris found themselves also machine gunned by the low-flying bombers.
26 Dec 1944	US Third Army under George Patton relieved the besieged city of Bastogne, Belgium.
27 Dec 1944	US troops began pushing German troops back in the Ardennes region, thus ending the German offensive.
28 Dec 1944	American troops began gaining ground in their counteroffensive in the Battle of the Bulge. Adolf Hitler ordered renewed offensives in Alsace and Ardennes regions against the advice of his generals.
30 Dec 1944	Germans again attacked in the Bastogne corridor in Belgium. Meanwhile, British troops attacked Houffalize, Belgium, but they were stopped by fierce German defense.
31 Dec 1944	US troops re-captured Rochefort, Belgium, while the US Third Army began an offensive from Bastogne.
1 Jan 1945	German troops began a withdrawal from the Ardennes Forest in the Belgian-German border region. Meanwhile, in retaliation for the Malmedy massacre, US troops massacred 30 SS prisoners at Chenogne, Belgium. In the air, the German Luftwaffe launched Unternehmen Bodenplatte, which consisted of 800 aircraft conducting low-level strikes against snow-bound Allied airfields in the Netherlands and Belgium. They destroyed 220 aircraft, mainly on the ground, but lost 188 aircraft of their own, as well as many experienced pilots who could not be replaced. This operation failed to achieve its goal of wiping out Allied air power based in the region.
3 Jan 1945	US First Army launched an attack on the northern flank of the Ardennes bulge in Belgium. Meanwhile, 1,100 Allied bombers, escorted by 11 fighter groups, bombed railroad and communications centers in western Germany.
5 Jan 1945	The German attack on Bastogne, Belgium was called off.
9 Jan 1945	US Third Army attacked towards Houffalize, Belgium, on the southern flank of the Ardennes bulge.
11 Jan 1945	British forces captured La Roche-en-Ardenne, Belgium, northwest of Bastogne.
12 Jan 1945	The Operation Nordwind offensive into France was finally stopped just 13 miles from Strasbourg. In Belgium, north of Bastogne, US and British forces linked up near La Roche-en-Ardenne.
13 Jan 1945	US First Army attacked near Stavelot and Malmédy in Belgium.
16 Jan 1945	US First and Third Armies linked up near Houffalize, Belgium, while British Second Army attacked near Maas River. The Germans were pushed back to the line prior to the launch of the Ardennes Offensive.
28 Jan 1945	The Ardennes bulge was finally pushed back to its original lines, thus ending the Battle of the Bulge.

Christmas Eve into Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, Company K, 290th, of which Uncle Mac's Platoon was a part, supported on the flanks by Cos. I and L, made a direct assault on a high hill controlling the approach to Hampteau.

From his Silver Star citation which was read at his funeral: "There was a German machine gun nest dug in on top of the hill. Two soldiers from Captain (later awarded) Mac Donald's platoon, were assigned to storm the position and overtake it using grenades, while supported by cover fire from the rest of the platoon. The two soldiers were both wounded and fell to the ground. Also several of the platoon had been injured or killed.

Captain Mac Donald first crawled on his belly out of his trench, to the wounded soldiers and dragged them back to safety, then he returned to crawl up to the German machine gun position by himself, throwing a grenade into it, and then charging into the bunker, killing all of the machine gun crew in hand to hand combat. During this assault he sustained significant injuries."

I don't know what his injuries were, but he received a Purple Heart for them.

Although pinned down by withering machine gun and mortar fire, these units seized enemy positions, thus ending the threat to Hotton. The high water mark of the German drive on Liege had been reached.

For his valor in combat he received the Silver Star. The third highest honor a soldier can receive for actions in combat. He saved the lives of two of the soldiers under his command. He eliminated a German stronghold single handedly, and he enabled the US Army to win the battle, ultimately leading to the defeat of German, and the liberation of Europe.

The Uncle Mac I Knew

After the war, Uncle Mac graduated from Utah State University and Golden Gate College. He went to work for LH Penny, a CPA firm where he met my dad. My dad and Uncle Mac worked together for many years and became very close friends. They both married and adopted families. My two sisters and I would travel with my parents from our home in the Bay Area to their home in Fresno often. And we went on vacations together to Blue Lakes, Donner Lake, and once to Hawaii.

For many years Uncle Mac managed the Cadillac-Olds dealership in Fresno, later opening his own auto leasing business. In the automobile business, he was well known for his honesty and integrity.

Uncle Mac always was a great husband and father. Once he was hand excavating a swimming pool in their new home. He dug out a set of trenches, covered them with plywood and dirt, and made an underground fort for us to play in, before ultimately digging the rest of the pool hole out. He was that kind of a father.

His wife, Bettie (Elisabeth) was an author who did very well in her own right. You can find her books on Amazon, well reviewed and still available.

Bettie and Mac's two children Brian and Karen were a great childhood friends. Sadly Brian ended his life in a very sad way before either of his parents passed.

In all the 50 years I knew him, I never once heard Uncle Mac talk about the war, his role in the most decisive battle in Europe, his injuries, or his Silver Star. The greatest generation never talked about their valor, or their trauma, they just stoically endured.

I miss Uncle Mac, Brian, Karen, Aunt Bettie and the golden days of childhood that they provided to me, along with my parents. A childhood of freedom and enjoyment secured by my Uncle Mac, a great American hero!

The Hidden Costs of Body Worn Cameras…

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 16:53:00 -0700

Citizens, politicians, civil rights advocates, prosecutors, and police officers want body worn cameras (BWC's). They are an effective tool for law enforcement, providing reliable evidence and deterring bad behavior by both the public and the police. However, deploying cameras and implementing an effective policy can be difficult both politically and technologically.

A little background

The current generation of body worn cameras function basically like any video camera: someone has to push the button to turn the camera on and off. That someone is the police officer who wears the camera. The video is stored on an SD Card or internal flash, and then downloaded by the officer at the end of his/her shift to a storage repository. We refer to this as the “dockable” camera model.

In a later article we will address the benefits of next-generation wireless (LTE/Wi-Fi) cameras which are always connected and how they change everything, but for now we will focus on dockable cameras.

The difficulty with body worn cameras is striking the balance between privacy rights, cost of operations, and the collection of meaningful evidence. Legislators, police departments, police officer unions, and other interest groups all try to draft policy that strike this balance. Generally the result is a long list of rules dictating when the officer needs to turn the camera on and off.

In most cases the resulting policy is a pragmatic balance that allows police to record most interactions with the public where evidence needs to be collected, and where the camera is off when privacy is a concern or when nothing relevant is occurring.

A typical policy would have the officer activate the camera when they are dispatched for an incident, when they believe a crime or infraction may be in progress, or when they believe a life or property threatening incident is occurring. It would also have the camera turned off when officers enter a private property without a warrant or without the prior permission of the resident or property owner; when a sexual crime has occurred and the victim requests privacy; when a minor is being interviewed in the absence of parental consent; and similar situations. The officer would also have discretion to turn the camera off for his/her personal privacy. Effective policy implementation relies on officer discretion.

Then there is the issue of retention, which generally keeps all recorded video for a minimum 30-60 days, with incident-relevant video kept for longer periods, from 1 year to forever.

To oversimplify the positions of various interest groups¹:

Privacy advocates want the least amount of recording possible, only recording evidence of actual crimes where only the perpetrator and individuals directly involved are in the field of view. They want the video retained for the minimum time possible, with complete redaction before being released.
Social Justice groups want only recording of police actions, exclusive of the public, unless there is evidence which would exonerate someone. They want evidence of police wrongdoing kept forever, and the rest immediately deleted.
Police officer unions want to record only criminal evidence, leaving out anything which might be taken out of context and result in disciplinary actions. Once the video is recorded, police officers want the right to edit it, then determine how long to keep whatever they think is relevant.
Prosecutors would like everything recorded, giving them the ability to select what evidence becomes part of the record. They would like to keep everything, but only release what they decide is relevant.
Courts prefer continuous recording of everything. And everything should be kept forever.
News media wants recording of all sensational events, with no redaction. They would keep the video themselves forever once it is released.
IT departments and city budget managers would like to record a fixed, predictable, and minimal amount of video, in order to reduce infrastructure costs. They actually drive the pragmatism of the policy.
Service providers want to record everything possible and store it forever.

The results of these divergent interests on policy vary dramatically, from a few minutes of video per shift on one extreme to hours of video on the other.

Mathematical Limitations

Let’s assume that all of the interest groups compromise and arrive at a policy right in the middle with the result:

2 hours of video per officer per 10 hour shift is recorded.
Cameras record at the relatively low resolution of 720p (1280x720 pixels) at 30 frames per second.
The resulting video files are about 2.472 Gigabytes per hour, or 4.944 Gigabytes per shift.
All video is saved for 30 days.
6% of all video is deemed to be potential evidence and is retained for 1 year.
2% of all video becomes part of a case file and must be retained for 5 years.

Then let’s use an example of a mid-size agency with 60 officers who work 3 shifts per day with 20 officers per shift, each officer with his/her own camera. (Yes, the officers get no time off in my example):

20 officers per shift X 2 hours of video per shift X 2.472GB per hour of video X 3 shifts per day = 297GB of video per day. This is how much needs to be stored and/or transferred to the cloud each day.
30 days per month of all video = 8.7 Terabytes of video per month (rolling)
6% of video per month is potential evidence = .06 X 8.7 TB = .522TB per month
1 year Long term storage of potential evidence = .522TB x 12 months = 6.264TB per year (rolling)
2% of video per month becomes evidence = .02 X 8.7TB = .174TB per month
5 year Long term storage of evidence files = .174TB x 60 months = 10TB per five years (rolling)

Once you have recorded this video, you have to store it, protect it as evidence following chain of custody rules, make it searchable, and provide it to various constituencies in either raw or redacted from to protect privacy.

Regardless of how you store your video, you will need to purchase the cameras, which cost from $400 to $1,000, depending on the supplier. Then you will need a docking station, which can cost an additional $50 to $200 per port depending on the supplier. These costs are fixed for both local storage or cloud storage architectures.

This is where a decision has to be made: do you buy local storage, or do you use a vendor solution in the Cloud.

Local Storage

The math to determine the cost of local storage is pretty simple. You need to buy a server, disks and tape, provide power, keep it maintained, and provide support. It needs to be secured, following CJIS²standards (for both physical and network security).

While these may seem onerous at first, they are not unlike traditional evidence chain of custody management. Not transiting public networks or using a hosted facility means greatly simplifying the implementation of a complaint facility.

Moving the video from the camera to a dock to a storage system on site is straight forward. Everything can be on the same LAN and is local, so you have plenty of bandwidth.

This could be covered with a single PC Server with 12TB of RAID disk storage, an LTO (Long Term Offline) tape drive, 4-2TB tapes, and software supporting transfer, storage, search and redaction management. Let’s say this whole system costs $40,000 in capital and about $5000 a year in recurring software and maintenance. Over 5 years the total cost of ownership is about $65,000. Allocating this to each camera it works out to be about $1083 per camera, or about $18 a month.

Of course you need an IT support engineer to maintain the system. But this will not be a full time job and in most cases can be provided through existing resources.

You need to add in the cost of power and air conditioning as well, which could run about $100 a month.

No other infrastructure is required.

Cloud

Cloud means using shared servers hosted at a remote facility. This can reduce the labor and support requirements from IT, although not completely eliminate it, as the cloud service provider maintains the servers, storage, and support infrastructure at their facility. For small agencies this may seem to be a very attractive option.

Your end to end network, reaching from your facility to the cloud hosting facility, must be CJIS compliant. At present there are very few such facilities.

Pricing for cloud storage solutions are advertised from about $79 per month per camera with unlimited storage. But there are typically additional service fees which can add up to well over $100 per month per camera. This adds up to $6,000 per camera over 5 years. Compare this to buying your own storage solution at $1,083 per camera – what would be more affordable to you?

In some cases vendors set a maximum storage allocation per month which is covered by their base service cost. Once this allocation is exceeded, additional costs (from 6.5 to 12 cents per gigabyte per month) are added. A number of agencies have been surprised by these charges. In some cases these charges are waived in the first year and then become payable after the agency has built a large repository of evidence.

How Secure Is your Data?

The CJIS guidelines provide great guidance on implementing security for video evidence which transits the public Internet, exists in shared storage environments and leaves the custody of the agency which created the video. There is no doubt that these guidelines are well thought through.

However, as we all know, hackers seem to find ways into just about every facility, and CJIS data centers represent an attractive honeypot of data for them. With all government agencies sharing one massive data center, it is incredibly attractive. Once one server is compromised, the entire facility is at risk.

Further, the legal admissibility of cloud stored video evidence is still an open topic. Often, the physical location where the data resides may not be known. It may have been moved from one jurisdiction to another even though it never left the service provider's network. Challenges to data access, data tampering, etc. have not yet been vetted through the courts.

Keeping data local eliminates many of these issues, provided due care has been taken to physically and logically protect evidence files. A well-engineered local storage system which follows CJIS guidelines and is kept off the Internet (air gapped) may avoid much of the current risk of cloud storage.

This is not to say that cloud storage is any more or less secure than local storage, but there are many unresolved issues with cloud that will only come to closure over time. It may be better to wait on cloud.

Broadband Bottleneck

A basic assumption to use cloud services is that adequate broadband connectivity exists between the police facility and the cloud facility. This is where police agencies can get bitten, hard.

Let’s go back to our storage requirement of 297GB of video per day. A transfer of this video evenly throughout the day equals 12.375GB of video per hour. To do this you will need a dedicated upload speed to the Cloud service provider of 33Mbps³. That is UPLOAD speed. It needs to be DEDICATED, not shared. And that is persistent, running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Most broadband connectivity is asymmetric with the download speed being the focus. Upload speeds are typically much lower. Higher upload speed requires the purchase of high cost business services such as 1Gbps Ethernet.

Based on the most recent FCC Measuring Broadband America⁴report for 2015, the mean upload speed for consumer services is about 5Mbps:

Click to enlarge

So generally, you will need to have an Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) service or a dedicated Metro Ethernet connection between the police facility where the download docks are located and the cloud storage provider location. This type of service can cost thousands of dollars a month and can take months to years to install depending on your location. This cost has to be added into the calculation of your cloud solution.

The other consideration is that you need to be transferring video continuously. If there is an interruption in service, you will need to buffer your transfer until the service is restored, requiring temporary local storage, and more bandwidth to allow the additional buffer upload. Most cloud service providers overlook this critical feature.

Inadequate Bandwidths Impact on Policy

Since most police agencies cannot afford the broadband connectivity required for the cloud, and they cannot afford to store everything in the cloud, they have to compromise policy.

Rather than recording all of the events that both the public and the police believe is appropriate, police opt to record less, record at lower resolution, record at lower frame rate, or store for a shorter period of time.

Using local storage (or maybe a hybrid model which only puts a subset of critical video files onto the cloud) allows you to store everything you should without compromise. Why bother with body worn cameras if you don't actually use them the way they are intended to be used?

Searching, Viewing, Redacting and Exporting the Data After Capture

Don’t forget that once your video is stored, you will need to quickly access it, search it, append it, redact it, and export it. So, you should also evaluate how much bandwidth this will require, as well as what outbound data charges your service provider may impose. Often vendors charge for outbound bandwidth. Depending on your application architecture this can be significant.

End of Contract Blues

One of the unmentioned problems encountered by police agencies is moving their video data at the end of their service contract. At the time that a contract is negotiated vendors will extoll the virtues of their proprietary video format for storage which improves compression, reduces storage requirements, etc. This may be true... until you need to extract your data from their repository.

The conversion of one file format and compression technology to another is called transcoding. Unfortunately this process can break the chain of custody for video files. So, at the end of your contract you may need to keep using the vendors file tools in order to view the evidence. Or you may be prevented from importing your video to a competing storage technology. Of course you don’t find this out until after it is too late and all of your data is in a proprietary format.

Plan for Success

When planning a body camera architecture first agree on your policy. Make sure you understand how it will be implemented as procedures. Then determine how much storage will be required based on the policy requirements. Look at the total long term costs over a three to five year period. Be sure to allow for broadband connectivity costs, buffering hardware at your locations, cost of download and transcoding at the end of your contract. Then make a decision whether you want to store your data locally or in the cloud.

Understanding how technology may constrain your policy will save you headaches now and in the future.

Shameless Plug

At HauteSpot Networks, our complete body worn video solution allows you to choose the right system architecture to meet your needs. Our HauteVIEW 100 camera is one of the best dockable cameras on the market today with industry leading features which are not found on many competing products.

The HauteSpot Dock Server is a simple, reliable and cost effective platform to which the HauteVIEW 100 cameras can download, process and store their video simply and easily. It can be ordered with hard disk storage, tape storage, or removable disk storage to accommodate whatever local storage requirements you may have. And the HauteSpot Dock Server can be used with either one of our two different evidence management software systems:

HauteVIEW Docking System software is a stand alone software solutions which runs on the HauteVIEW Dock Server and handles all of your basic transfer and storage functions right on the dock itself or to user provided NAS storage. It is a low cost solution which is perfect for smaller agencies on a limited budget.
HauteSpot Evidence Case Manager is a comprehensive evidence management system with is designed to work with multiple HauteVIEW Dock Servers, disk storage arrays, tape library systems and private or hosted cloud storage. Evidence Case Manager transfers video from cameras to the dock, from the dock to long term storage, provides robust searching, appending of additional meta data, and automatic redaction. It can be also used with third party systems like Computer Aided Dispatch, Interview Room Recording Systems, Records Management Systems and even Video Management Systems. Evidence Case Manager is your one comprehensive solution for all your evidence. Your officers will like the simple to use interface. Your IT manager will like the robust management features. And your Chief will like the low total cost of ownership.

And just wait until we release our new wireless, always connected HauteVIEW 200 cameras!

¹http://www.aele.org/bwc-info.html

²https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/cjis-security-policy-resource-center/view

³Based on calculation from http://www.thecloudcalculator.com/calculators/file-transfer.html

⁴https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/measuring-broadband-america/measuring-broadband-america-2015

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Fri, 25 Dec 2015 22:53:00 -0800

A Story of Giving

Back in the early 1990s I lived in Sri Lanka as the General Manager for American President Lines. It was an adventurous time for me and there were many things learned. But one of the most memorable was the friendship which I built with an unassuming man who worked at the Horton Plains National Park named Kulasuriya.

The Horton Plains is a truly amazing place of unbelievable beauty. It is filled with unusual animals such as white monkeys, an endless variety of colorful birds, deer, snakes, and an occasional leech.

On one trip up to see the park we happened to come across a short man sitting on the side of the trail watching monkeys in the trees and drawing with a number 2 pencil on some old scrap paper. We stopped to watch him work and he really was pretty good. His hands were hard and caked with dirt and his tools were really poor. His pencil was sharpened with a knife and was whittled down to not much more than a stub. And his paper was stained and torn. It was clear he was using the discarded trash from the rangers to make his art.

We stopped and sat down next to him and started to talk. We learned that he lived in the rain forest and that he liked to draw when he was not working. But there was more to him.

The park is guarded, and trails maintained by rangers who live year round in a small cabin near the entrance to the park. Of course there is someone who has to clean and maintain the cabin for the rangers. This job has the title of Peon, and is the lowest caste of jobs in Sri Lanka, which has a similar, although less rigidly enforced, caste system like India. Kulisuriya was the Peon of the ranger station. He was the lowest of the low economically.

Kulasuriya was born and raised in Moratuwa, south of the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo, where I lived. His father has passed away some time ago, so Kulisuriya was responsible for caring for his mother and younger sister. His salary of about $30 a month was what kept the family alive.

On a good day with light traffic it was about 90 minutes by car to drive there from my house. On the bus, it might take 2.5 hours. From Colombo up to Horton Plains was another story. By car it could take 4 to 5 hours. But by bus it could take 8 or 9 hours. Kulasuriya would travel back and forth from Moratuwa to Horton Plains and back once a month so he could check in on his mother and sister, make repairs to their meager home, and enjoy two days off, his only non-working time.

Kulasuriya and I talked for about an hour and he told me about his aspirations to become a wildlife artist. However he needed to care for his family and buying proper drawing materials was well beyond his means.

On my next trip home to California, I stopped in at an art supply store and purchased some colored drawing pencils, a clipboard, and a few packages of drawing paper. It was a small gesture, but I thought that maybe Kulasuriya might be able to get started with some proper supplies and maybe sell some of his drawings to other tourists in order to start making a living. When I returned to Colombo I sent the supplies up to the rangers station so Kulasuriya could use them.

I forgot about him for a few weeks.

Then one day Kulasuriya showed up at my house in Colombo. He had traveled all the way up from Moratuwa to Colombo by bus in order to thank me and deliver to me a small gift. I was very surprised, but delighted to see him. However my housekeeper and driver both looked at me like I was crazy for letting this poor little man in the garage, let alone into my house. They were shocked that I would allow a lowly peon anywhere near my home. I looked past this and invited Kulasuriya in.

He gave me a small package, wrapped in newsprint. He told me it was something for me. I unwrapped it and was surprised to see a small ceramic bunny rabbit. It was not particularly beautiful. There was nothing especially unique about it. It could be purchased at any shop for maybe 30 rupees ( $1). But coming from Kulasuriya, it was amazing. Here was a man who had to feed three people on $30 a month. A man who traveled 8 hours on a bus so he could see his mother and sister once a month. A man who had nothing.

I could not let this go, so I offered to give him a ride back to Moratuwa in my car, rather than have him endure another 2.5 hour bus trip home after coming all the way up to see me. Believe me, taking a bus in Sri Lanka is nothing like the air conditioned, comfortable metro transit that we have in the USA.

My driver, Fernando, was furious that I was going to make him drive Kulasuriya, a peon, and I all of that way. He tried to make excuses. I said I would drive him myself. Fernando relented, realizing that my driving in Sri Lanka, at night, was really dangerous. This was the time of the LTTE, military roadblocks everywhere, and extortion of foreign nationals who got into traffic accidents was very common.

So we set off into the dark wet night to deliver Kulisuriya home.

Home for Kulisuriya was a small, one room corrugated metal shack with a dirt floor, a single wood chair, a small table, three bamboo reed mats to sleep on, a dresser, a small cabinet, and a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was no radio, no tv, no wall coverings, no curtains. Plastic sheets hung over the windows. Cooking was done over a fire in the corner of the shack, ringed with stones. Outside was a round well, with a rope and a bucket. I didn't ask where the toilet was. Hopefully it was not next to the well.

Kulisuriya invited me in and asked me to sit in the chair. He introduced me to his mother and sister, neither of whom could speak English, and my Sinhalese was pretty bad. But I could see how excited they were that an American business man was in their house, invited by their brother. I also noticed that the neighbors were all watching and whispering amongst themselves.

Kulisuriya then opened the cabinet and I could see a single cup on the shelf. I don't know how the family drank otherwise. But it was a clear glass tea cup. And next to it was a small tea pot. A sense of dread came over me, as I realized that he was going to make a cup of tea for me. He asked me if I would like some tea, and of course I had to accept. His mother went outside to the well and got a bucket of water. She brought it in and filled up a pot on the fire and we waited, idly chatting, while the water boiled. At least I hoped it was boiling.

After what seemed like an eternity, Kulisuriya poured the water into the teapot and added some loose leaf tea. We waited a few more minutes for the tea to steep, and then he poured it into the glass cup on the table in front of me. The water was brown and cloudy, and I tried to see if there was anything floating in it that did not look like tea leaves. I smiled a weak smile and politely took a small sip. He asked me how it was, and I said "delicious".

He then went back to the cabinet and returned with a package of cookies. Vanilla cookies is what the label said. My guess is that the cookies had been purchased some years ago for an honored guest that maybe did not arrive. The label was old and faded, and the price tag on the package was peeling off, as the glue dried up. That package of cookies must have cost them another 30 or 40 rupees, and I really did not want them to squander their treasure on me. But they insisted. Kulasuriya opened the package and placed two cookies on a plate, also extracted from the cabinet. He set them down in front of me and suggested that I eat.

I ate both of the cookies. The dry, stale, hard, crumbly cookies that had been sitting on that shelf for years. The treasure of a family who had nothing. They were offering it to me, in this moment. It was everything they had. Everything they valued. Everything that they could offer to a friend from a distant land whom they might not every meet again.

I was stunned in the moment. I was saddened that all I had done was buy them some pencils and paper. I became keenly aware of my own life of relative ease and abundance. It was almost like I was at communion in church. It awakened something in me about thankfulness, about gratitude. But also about pride and self sufficiency. Kulasuriya was not asking for anything from me. He never did. He explained with pride what he did to support his family. He offered these gifts to me, not with the expectation of repayment. He was giving me the most valuable thing he could. He showed me kindness and gratitude.

On the ride back home I had to stop and vomit several times and I was as sick as a dog for the next week or so. The price of my experience with my friend.

Kulasuriya mailed me some of his first color drawings done with his new pencils and paper. I bought him a more extensive drawing kit which included more pencils, pens, and acrylics.

Hostilities in Sri Lanka heated up. My daughter Zoe was conceived, and it was time to leave Colombo. I lost touch with Kulasuriya, but I still have the little ceramic bunny on the mantel over our fireplace. Whenever I see that little bunny I think about was giving really means, and how a little man with nothing touched my life.

When I get home I will update this blog with a photo of the bunny.

There is Nothing Neutral in Title II Regulation of the Internet

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 23:12:00 -0800

It has been a long time since I posted something to my blog. But Title II regulation of the Internet in the guise of implementing Net Neutrality is such as big issue I just had to write something.

A Little Background

I started working with FidoNet back in about 1979 in high school and was enamored with CompuServe throughout college. I joined the Well and used my Hayes 1200 baud modem to connect to others to discuss technology, social issues and the like. But I knew that there was going to be a commercial aspect to this that extended beyond just being a substitute for telephone party lines.

In about 1988 I started a TCP/IP based BBS system in Oakland I called TransTech. Over time I hooked up to NSFNET. I was given a class C network (which I would later have to give back). And finally I found my calling when I built one of the first wireless ISPs in the Bay Area providing coverage off the top of the 1200 Broadway building in Oakland to the newly decommissioned Alameda Naval Air Station.

I never once had to get a license, ask permission, adhere to standards of decency, or worry about what my customers were using their connectivity for. I provided a pipe through which data flowed. I paid upstream providers for larger pipes, and I never had time to worry about metering content. I knew that if I did meter content, there were lots of competitors ready to take my place. Pricing was set by the market. Service was set by the market. Customers chose the best service for the best price.

Fast forward to present. Pretty much the model of operation for the Internet remains the same.

However, fear of something that never even has been a real issue prompted cries for government intervention in order to enforce Net Neutrality. But people forget that we live in a Laissez-faire economic system in which transactions between private parties are relatively free from government interference such as these massive Title II regulations. The market will punish those that filter traffic through competition.

Wireless and over the top/virtual ISPs exist as a locally owned bypass around monopolistic cable and telco companies. This keeps them in check. But not for much longer. We have now empowered the government to regulate from top to bottom a utility which was functioning perfectly well with no regulation. Beware unintended consequences.

Net neutrality and Title II FCC Internet regulation are not the same.

Net neutrality is the concept of treating all packets equally, regardless of the source or the content. But from a practical perspective this is not realistic. There is limited bandwidth on networks. Traffic needs to be managed, prioritized in order for it to all get through. Every network manager will tell you that they apply QoS (quality of service) prioritization on their network. You have to, unless you have limitless capacity. Network operators should be free to define these rules. And customers should be free to choose which networks they want to use based on the quality of service they receive. Networks will evolve based on the type of QoS prioritization they apply. Customers will have choice in a free market.

Net neutrality can and is achieved through competition. A free and open market is what is needed. Maybe there could be some work on local right of ways in order to spur competition. But Title II is like putting out a match with a fire hose.

Title II is an antiquated set of government restrictions designed for the bygone telephone monopoly of 1937. Title II sets up regulatory bureaucracies overseeing a utility that wants to be free, not controlled.

The first casualties of this regulation will be the local ISPs who provide the very competition to the large monopolies who the advocates of Title II were trying to reign in. So unintended consequence #1 is elimination of competition and choice.

The second unintended consequence will be taxation. Now that the government has control of the Internet it will want to wring out of it every last penny it can. Expect fees, licenses, use taxes, excise taxes, and the like to start appearing on your ISP bill shortly. And they will grow.

The third unintended consequence will be increases in the barriers to entry for using the Internet as a vehicle for free expression. With no license fees, no bureaucracy, no regulation, today anyone can set up a blog, a web site, or chat at a cost approaching zero. But the government will make it increasingly harder for people to do this.

The fourth unintended consequence will be censorship. The fairness doctrine. The seven deadly words. Hate speech, and other arbitrary rules will be applied to curtail the use of the "public" (read government regulated) Internet.

Beyond this, I am sure their will be many other unintended consequences. Curtailment of innovation. Decline in infrastructure investment. Who knows.

Pirate Internet

There is one thing everyone can start planning to do. Buy an outdoor wireless router. Load it up with some mesh software like Freifunk Wireless, and create a local community network which is apart from the government run Internet. Using currently unlicensed radio frequencies, you can bypass the regulation which is coming. You can maintain your freedom. And you can create competition for the new Ma Bell or whatever we will call the super monopolies which this is sure to produce.

Carriers Move to Limit Public Safety Cellular Data Transfer

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Tue, 3 Dec 2013 19:00:00 -0800

A customer of ours told us, and this has not yet been confirmed, that Verizon is moving to follow the T-Mobile model of cellular data transfer throttling for public safety. Basically you will pay for a 5GB transfer cap at full LTE 4G speed (measured in Mbps) at a fixed fee, then once you hit the cap you can still transfer but your speed will be reduced to 256kbps or less. I assume that you can still purchase a plan with a higher transfer cap, but it will cost you more.

Actually I use T-Mobile 4G with such a plan for my cell phone and it is a great deal. But then I am only surfing the net, checking my emails and checking in on Facebook.

For police and other public safety personnel who have become accustomed to unlimited transfer at full speed, this presents a big problem. Many of our folks in blue use IP cameras to stream video from a remote site over cellular. It is easy to install, it is available everywhere, and it is compact.

Unfortunately streaming video requires a lot of bandwidth. A typical 720p at 15fps camera will use about 1.7Mbps. That is about 13MB per minute, or 765MB per hour. So you can easily reach your 5GB transfer limit in about 6 1/2 hours. So if you need 24x7 streaming you have to compromise.

Many IP cameras support multiple streams for the same video and some have SD cards that allow up to 64GB of storage (83 hours of 720p at 15fps). So you can send one small stream over cellular at a low resolution and slow frame rate while storing locally. If you were willing to run at VGA resolution (640x480) at 4fps you could get an video stream for "situational awareness" in 150kbps. But that is not a very good image quality, it is slow and jerky, and it still will burn through your data plan at 1MB per minute, or 1.6GB per day. So you could run for about 3 days a month before you run out of data transfer on your plan.

Another issue with this strategy is that you will need to determine what the minimum data rate that your cellular link supports is. If you are in an area with only 3G and are on the fringe of the coverage area or in an area that is highly congested, you may only achieve 100kbps. So you need to set your camera at this low rate in order to assure that your stream gets across. Your camera cannot adapt.

And then you have to think about retrieving your video evidence from your camera. You have your cellular connection, but if you try to transfer the locally stored high quality video from the camera back over that cell connection, you are again faced with your data cap.

And what if you want a 1080p camera or a 5MP camera, or a 20MP camera, or faster frame rate. What will you do?

MVE

What you really need is a video storage and transmission system that was designed for the limitations of a cellular world.

A system which allows you to use the camera you want, at the location you want, regardless of what kind of power is available or how much space there is.
A system which can store weeks or even months worth of full frame rate, full resolution video on site and yet allow you to easily retrieve it over the air.
A system that can accept any USB modem from any carrier.
A system which maintains an outbound connection to your HQ location, but does not send video when no one is watching.
A system which automatically adjusts it's frame rate, resolution, and compression for the best possible live viewing given the bandwidth available.
A system which supports remote viewing using any device you have, be it a pc, iPhone or Android device.
A system with wide operating temperature and choice of storage media up to 1TB internally.
A system that supports cryptographic tunneling for security.
A system that gives you a choice of using a simple Windows remote desktop or web interface for management.
A system that is backed by a team of experts in IP wireless video.
And a system that is reasonably priced.

You want a HauteSpot Networks MVE system.

I could go on about all of the benefits of the MVE system, but the best way to decide for yourself is to try the system out. Call HauteSpot Networks to order a demo system. +1 (800) 541-5589

The Power Paradox

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:36:00 -0700

Three years ago HauteSpot Networks introduced the microNVR which was and remains a valuable tool for video security. The premise of the microNVR is to be a small (as in "micro"), power efficient, computing device that has all sorts of connectivity and the ability to store and process video at the edge. In this case the edge means on a pole, in a car, along a fence, on a roof, out in the woods...anywhere you just cannot place a big computer.

For some time now we have been working towards a upgrade replacement for the microNVR. We need to increase it's video processing capability and its storage, while retaining the same general low power consumption and size.

Intel left us without a good roadmap. The Atom processor family has basically gone without an upgrade since 2009, while Intel focused its resources on building their Mobile Phone System Platforms, they let the Atom family languish. And in the Core product line there really were no viable options presented either. Most of their chips started at 25 watts or about 10x the power consumption of the Atom.

The Z550 Atom that we use in the microNVR runs at 2GHz and is a single core processor with two threads. The GMA500 GPU is capable of encoding about 30fps of 1080p video into H.264 streams. If you have 3 two megapixel cameras running at 10fps each, and are encoding the video or transcoding it for transmission, then you have pretty much consumed all of the capacity of the processor and GPU.

CPU Boss Shootout review...
I have no idea where they got their power number.
The Atom is 1/10 the power of the Fusion.

So we went over to AMD and experimented with their Fusion product family, which was presented as having great video processing capabilities with low power. What we found was that AMD had no better story than Intel. Their embedded processors started at about 17 watts and their GPU was designed for better performance, at least in theory, than the Intel Atom. The AMD T40N processor, which runs at 1GHz does have a better GPU for decode (like watching a movie). But that GPU only decodes certain codecs well. H.264 encode requires third party libraries (from a third party called Main Concept) that when we tried them did not work. We contacted AMD and they said that the GPU did not support H.264 encode but that later versions of the Fusion family would. So that meant that any video processing on the platform other than decode had to be done on the CPU in software, which, because the CPU was clocked at only 1 GHz was even worse than the ATOM.

So we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally Intel released a low power 3rd generation i3/i5/i7 processor family. The really good news is that these processors have Quick Sync technology built into them as part of the HD Graphics 4000 GPU. Quick Sync accelerates both encode and decode of H.264 (for applications that are designed to use it).

So we were excited to take a look. There is a lot of supporting documentation regarding the performance that Quick Sync brings to H.264. We expect that it will mean about 3x performance over previous generations of Intel Core processors. Or about 98fps of 1080p H.264 transcode with almost any member of the i3/i5/i7 3rd generation family (Ivy Bridge). However, running at 17W means that our system will consume somewhere around 23W versus the 10W that we consume today with the Atom system. This much power means twice as many solar panels, twice as many batteries, etc.

Then we got some even better news that Intel was going to release a new Atom processor in the second quarter of 2013 and that this new Atom (Bay Trail) would have Quick Sync in it and have the same HD 4000 GPU. Great, this is the CPU we want...well don't get too excited...

CPU World reported that Bay Trail was going to be delayed until mid 2014. This would have been a 3W chip that had all of the performance we wanted in the exact package size we need. But who knows when or if this will get released.

So we are going to punt. This probably means building a system for release in the next quarter based on the low power i3 or i7 processor. The system will be a little bit bigger and take more power. Then when the new low power Bay Trail comes out, we will jump back to that.

Unless Intel jumps around some more. Keep your fingers crossed.

Getting through the hype at ISC West

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:30:00 -0700

It was interesting to walk the ISC West 2013 show floor and speak with vendors. There were two wild claims being made at this years show and misrepresentations of what vendors were showing that I think integrators need to be aware of.

Video Streaming Over 4G

Example of a matrix view of thumbnails on a VMS

The most outlandish claim came from one VMS vendor who was saying that their product could transmit 16 megapixel camera streams at 30fps and full resolution in 1Mbps of bandwidth over 3G/4G. This was just a flat our misrepresentation of what they were doing.

There is a huge difference between transporting 16 streams as full frame rate and full resolution and sending thumbnail views of camera streams. Let me explain.

A typical H.264 IP camera with a 1.3 megapixel resolution will compress and stream video in 25.6KB frame size. At 30fps, that is 768KBps or 6144Kbps or 6.1Mbps. This assumes some motion, etc, but is a general ballpark. By turning up compression, you can get this down to around 2.5Mbps at the cost of image quality (artifacts).

In a typical security configuration the cameras send a primary stream over a high speed local area network to the VMS server without concern for bandwidth, recording at best quality and frame rate. Sending a 2.5 Mbps, or even a 6Mbps stream, between the camera and the server is not usually an issue. However, sending from the server out to a remote client such as a smartphone over a narrow cellular link can be an issue.

Example of how HauteSpot MVE Connects

If you are using a LTE phone you may be lucky and get 8 Mbps or more down, depending on network conditions, but rarely is this sustainable over long periods. A more likely down stream speed is going to be around 1 to 2 Mbps.

If you tried to stream at full resolution, full frame rate and full image quality even one H.264 1.3 megapixel stream the video will have little chance of getting through in real time. You will need to buffer a long time (aka YouTube, Hulu, etc). Remember that most broadcast streaming is non-realtime and they use multipass encoding techniques to improve the quality and reduce the size of the streams they send.

Further, a 1080p monitor can display 1920x1080 pixels or approximately 2 megapixels at any given time. So sending any more data than this from the server to your client is really useless.

So what most VMS systems do is set a second stream from the camera to a lower resolution for live viewing. They are still recording the primary live stream at full resolution. When someone goes to the VMS from their cell phone, they first get a thumbnail of each of the cameras using the small substream and then, when you click on a camera to look at in detail, the VMS will shift from the small secondary stream to the primary full resolution stream. But even this may be scaled and transcoded on the server to fit the size of the screen of your device.

So, really what you are getting from the VMS to the smartphone client is a 2 megapixel or smaller transcoded rendering of your cameras. When you are looking at 16 cameras, you are not receiving all 16 streams at full resolution, you are receiving either a bunch of small substreams or a transcoded single stream representing all of the substreams in 2 megapixels. This may then additionally be compressed to fit into a 1 Mbps pipe. Think of it as a "image of your streams".

There are many VMS who do this and the technique has existed for years. It is a commonly known method that is well documented in the public domain.

What is missing from most vendors implementations are several critical elements which are addressed by the HauteSpot MVE system:

Inbound Mobile Ingest of Cameras - It is all well and good to be able to view your cameras remotely over 4G, but connecting your cameras to the VMS over cellular is a different story. This requires uplink speed, which rarely exceeds 500kbps and can be extremely variable. MVE dynamically adjusts the uplink speed to fit the available bandwidth. It is not preset to a low "live view" rate and size. If you have good bandwidth, you will get a better image.
Persistence - Most VMS have no ability to deal with the constant disconnects of cellular. Roaming between cell towers, changing IP addresses, and lost signal all contribute to loss of connection. MVE makes and keeps persistent connections that have been proven to work on cellular networks in the worst conditions (hurricane Irene, tropical storm Sandy, floods and hot weather).
Remote Record with Transfer - The HauteSpot microNVR allows remote recording at full frame rate and resolution at the camera source. It then provides a persistent connection to the MVE server and the dynamic rate adaptation which adjusts to changing available bandwidth. It also allows remote, chain of evidence transfer of the high resolution video from the remote site in batch.

There is a big difference between transmitting full resolution, full frame rate, full quality video over cellular and sending a transcoded or down-res version of video from megapixel sources. Know what you are getting.

VMS IP Video Decode Capacity Vs Record Capacity

As we walked the show we asked a simple question of a number of VMS vendors "How many 1080p 30fps live streams can you simultaneously display (assuming that they had a multiple monitor video card on their system)?" The answers ranged from 4 to 64. And the answers were coming from field application engineers, not sales people.

A VMS provides a number functions including recording video streams to disk, displaying live and recorded streams, providing search capabilities, etc. The answers that we got indicated that the vendors really did not understand the difference between storing video and decoding video for display.

Again, IP VMS systems receive incoming video streams from cameras. These are typically either H.264 or MJPEG streams that have a fixed frame rate, resolution and compression profile as set on the camera. Most VMS systems will receive the video stream and write it to disk. This function does not require any significant CPU or GPU functions, since it is really just network IO. The system is limited only by the bandwidth of the network as to how many streams it can support. Disk IO is generally faster than network IO.

Tom's Hardware Benchmark for H.264 encoding

Displaying a live or recorded stream does require CPU and/or GPU resources. A stream must be read and decoded for display. This is significant work for a computer.

The chart on the left shows just how much time it takes to encode 1080i video using hardware and software. This is an example of when you are reading a raw source and sending it to a client to view. Performance is similar for decoding. As you can see, using hardware such as the Intel Quick Sync technology built into Ivy Bridge based systems can significantly improve performance. Without Quick Sync, software encoding/decoding consumes approximately 25-50% of a quad core CPU for just one 1080p 30fps stream. Using high end video cards helps some, but again, they are targeted at single or maybe dual display systems, so they really don't try to decode more than what they are capable of displaying.

If you were to use the hardware acceleration of Quick Sync, then you could get 120 fps of 1080p

video encoded or decoded for playback. So the best possible case for displaying full 1080p at 30fps is 4 simultaneous streams. But this is using hardware. If you are using software to decode/encode, as most VMS systems do, then you are really down to about 1 stream. Which makes sense given that most VMS systems only have one display attached.

So the vendors that said they are able to simultaneously decode 12 or 64 streams are clearly not correct.

If you are writing a file to disk or reading a file from disk to and from the network, then yes, you can support many cameras. If you are trying to actually display the video, then the capacity is much much lower.

It is interesting that only a couple of products like Network Optix HD Witness or HauteSpot's MVE system take advantage of Intel Quick Sync hardware acceleration in order to increase performance and are designed for high definition video processing.

This is actually a good thing for companies like RGB Spectrum who make display wall processors that allow you to aggregate multiple server video outputs into a single consolidated display. Solutions like their QuadView HDx allow you to consolidate multiple video sources into one screen, so even if you can only get a single 1080p stream out of your VMS, you can combine it with other servers to create faster, full frame rate, full resolution systems. Watch for more on high resolution display, particularly 4K, when I review NAB 2013 in my next blog.

Last Chance for Free Exhibits Pass to ISC West 2013

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Sun, 7 Apr 2013 08:32:00 -0700

It is that time of year again...ISC West 2013 in Las Vegas. If you have not already done so, there is still time to get your exhibits only pass. Visit our free exhibits only pass page by April 9th. Then come by our booth 9139 to see some of our cool new products including:

HauteMOBiLE - In-vehicle high performance multi technology multi function router

HauteMESH - High availability wireless routing

Integrated 8MP 180 degree camera - NVR - wireless router

HauteSpot and Sentry360 have collaborated to create a new, completely integrated remote surveillance solution which combines a 8MP 180 degree camera, the microNVR, and the HauteMOBiLE router into a single, easy to install, low power, rugged system. The new system allows situational awareness video surveillance to be placed anywhere and powered by just about anything (solar, wind, battery, ac). Video can be viewed live, in high frame rate and high resolution over HauteSpot private broadband or over 3G or 4G cellular. The system scales to hundreds of cameras. HauteSpot will be presenting this new product at the Sentry360 Partner Conference on April 9th at the Flamingo Hotel.

Collaborate and WIN

Come by the HauteSpot booth 9139 and meet all of the HauteSpot Team, discuss your upcoming projects.

We also are running a show special through the end of April on the HauteMOBiLE router. Only $299. See our booth for details and applicable limitations.

We are also raffling off products. Come by and say hi.

Standard vs Embedded OS for Video Server

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Fri, 8 Feb 2013 14:15:00 -0800

Video Management Servers are interesting beasts. On the one hand security system installers, integrators and end users want the flexibility of running a standard operating system where they can install the applications they want, optimize the system the way that they want and use it in a way that is well known to them.

On the other hand they also want to lock the system down so that it cannot be easily broken/trashed/corrupted/hacked etc.

Building an embedded system is generally what people do to lock a system down to serve one purpose. We sometimes call this building an appliance. Basically an embedded system will use a purpose built piece of hardware and special purpose operating system, install their application, and then freeze the system so it cannot be modified.

If you are a system developer, this is a fairly straight forward endeavor. You assign a programmer to build the embedded operating system and use programming tools to lock it down. Then you sell your appliance as a single function device. Done. Linux is well designed for this and you can easily build systems with read only boot/system partitions and then working directory structures to store system data. Microsoft offers a product line for this which is referred to as Windows Embedded. It is a modification of standard windows which allows modular configuration of the operating system, customization of the interface, and locking the system down.

The problem that embedded systems pose for end users and system installers is that they limit flexibility. Once a system is built into an embedded appliance, it's purpose is set. You can't easily modify it, add functions to it, or customize it. From a support perspective this is good. Support technicians know exactly what the system does, how it does it, how to reset it, etc. So when a customer calls in, you can actually help them. From a user perspective it is frustrating, as you may need to add functionality that the embedded system developer never intended or imagined.

The other main thing that embedded systems do is create read only boot/system images that allow devices to be powered off without going through a shutdown sequence. Generally the OS and applications are loaded into and run from RAM on boot up and read/write to a RAM disk. This eliminates disk writes which can corrupt storage if they are interrupted. A standard operating system on the other hand will read and write to the physical disk, freeing up RAM to be used for other purposes. There are a lot of things that written to disk including page files, log files, temp files, registry, configuration files, etc.

When we designed the microNVR we weighed the pros and cons of using an embedded operating system versus using a standard operating system. We opted for supporting Windows 7 Professional which is a standard operating system (we also support our own distribution of Linux which is based on the base Kernel with an LXDE desktop). This allows our customers to install and run any standard applications they wish. For example we support Exacq, Milestone, ONSSI, Genetec, Network Optix, and many other video management systems. We also support our own MVE and Mobile Video Vault systems.

microNVR

However, we have had some issues with customers not executing safe system shutdowns on Windows, which has resulted in disk corruption. Normally on boot up the user will be asked to run a disk check and correct the issue, but the microNVR is often used headless (without a monitor) so the user cannot see that the system wants him/her to hit a key to run a repair. We had to make a change.

We have just finished building a new system image which will be available on new microNVR systems. The new image still uses Windows 7 Professional, but with several significant changes which make the system straddle the line between embedded and standard operating systems. But the change also fixes a number of deficiencies we saw in Windows 7 Professional when used as a host for a Video Management System.

First we changed the definition of how we used our disk partitions. We now have a system partition (C:) and a data partition (D:). Drive C: loads normally to memory, but we also create a RAM drive which intercepts write activity and buffers it while the system is powered on, making Drive C: essentially read only. Drive D: is a full read/write partition which hosts all of your applications, as well as user data files, log files, page files and more. Anything that needs to be persistently written to disk goes on Drive D:.

When a user wants to modify the registry, or other system configuration which needs to be written persistently to Drive C: for booting, then we have an application on the system desktop that will write the working RAM drive intercept partition to Drive C: making the changes permanent.

So basically we created a hybrid system that protects the system from unintended changes, perserves data, and allows permanent changes to the system without having to use an embedded operating system. We reduce system failures due to disk errors and allow the microNVR to behave like a true embedded device, while allowing all of the flexibility of a standard server OS. Think of this as an end user oriented embedded system.

The only thing a user has to do differently with our new Windows 7 Professional build is click the "Write to Disk C:" icon on their desktop after they have installed or remove an application or make other system changes which require modifications to registry or the system disk partition. Of course the whole system can be remotely administered using Windows Remote Desktop using Ethernet or 802.11b/g/n wireless connections.

The new hybrid OS is an exciting development by HauteSpot which gives our installers, system integrators, and end users all the benefits of an embedded OS, with the flexibility of a standard OS.

HauteSpot and GER Support the 57th Presidential Inauguration

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 09:28:00 -0800

900,000 People Fill the Capital Mall for the 57th Presidential Inauguration

DC DOH Mobile Command Vehicle with Ewrap™ on right

The 2013 Presidential Inauguration brought landmark changes in emergency management and spectator safety. For the first time, inaugural personnel used a powerful situational awareness software suite and wireless communications system to track medical emergencies; reunite lost family members; and provide real time information to event organizers. Emergency personnel from The District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and the United States military integrated emergency data using HC Standard® – a patient tracking and critical asset software solution developed by Global EmergencyResources, LLC based in Augusta, Georgia. The mobile systems and devices were enabled to communicate over various methods including the Ewrap ™ (Emergency Wireless Routing Access Point) system developed by HauteSpot Networks for Global Emergency Resources.

One of several first aid tents erected during the Inauguration

HC Standard® and the Ewrap ™ system allowed local, state and federal agencies, including the National Parks Service, Secret Service, the Red Cross, and Homeland Security officials to have a common operating picture of major events during the Inauguration, including the Presidential Candlelight Reception; the Inaugural Parade; activities along the National Mall; the Commander in Chief Ball; the Inaugural Ball; and the Inaugural Prayer Service.

Staff from JTF CAPMED prepare for patient support

The DC Department of Health partnered with the MarylandInstitute for Emergency Medical Service Systems (MIEMSS), the Northern Virginia Emergency Response System (NVERS), and the Maryland Department of HumanResources (MD DHS) to provide patient care and tracking throughout the event. Each partner used its own installation of HC Standard® to enter patient data with Motorola MC65 handheld devices. The MC65 handhelds then linked over either cellular or standard 802.11b/g/n "WiFi" through one of 18 Ewrap™ communications systems strategically placed at tents around the Capital Mall back to command centers in real time.

MC65 handheld with HC Standard® running

The Ewrap™ system is a waterproof, rugged, portable communication system which combines advanced wireless mesh, multi band broadband connectivity, high speed wired Ethernet, and multi technology/multi band cellular (LTE, EVDO, UMTA, HSPA+, and GSM EDGE) wireless backhaul to maintain constant, always on communications, along with long range 802.11b/g/n access point function for client device connections. The electronics are based on HauteSpot's HauteMESH™ router product, but enhanced and integrated into the case, antenna, and power system by GER. Each Ewrap™ is fully self contained with batteries capable of running for several days, yet the system is light weight and easy to carry by hand. The Ewrap™ is intelligent and automatically selects the best backhaul connection.

Ewrap™ systems ready for use

Around the Mall the Ewrap™ units would communicate to each other over mesh. Then each Ewrap™ would connect over the carrier cellular network, announcing it's cellular status over mesh to all the other Ewrap™s. If an Ewrap™ could not connect over its local cellular connection, it could use the connection of another Ewrap™ on the mesh.

Patient and incident management data was aggregated and shared in all the different agency's systems so that EMTs, first responders, and command center leaders could see the full picture of Inaugural events as they occurred.

JTF CapMed Operations Team
on the day of the 57th Inauguration.

During the Inauguration, volunteers from the various EMS agencies used the Motorola Handled devices running HC Standard® to track emergency or first aid case, then transmitted the data back in real to each of the three emergency operations centers where the data was plotted, displayed, and used for the event tracking and management. Additionally, family members who were lost, and those who were looking for them, had their information uploaded in real time to a multi-jurisdictional database so they could be more easily reunited. Even the 100+ horses that carried the mounted police were part of the HC Standard® operating picture.

“Interoperability was key,” says Stan Kuzia, CEO and founder of Global Emergency Resources. “The EMS and Healthcare partners in the National Capital Region (NCR) have worked diligently over the years to eliminate information silos and enhance communication. This Presidential Inauguration demonstrated their hard work is paying off”. The various civilian agencies in the NCR worked closely with their military counterparts to share a combined picture of patients and missing persons being treated and handled during the entire event. HC Standard® and the Ewrap™ communications system helped to bridge the interoperability gaps on Inauguration Day as near real-time data was made available to military responders just as quickly as it was to their civilian counterparts.

Intelligent Wireless Routing

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 12:52:00 -0800

noun

1. capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.

2. manifestation of a high mental capacity: He writes with intelligence and wit.

3. the faculty of understanding.

4. knowledge of an event, circumstance, etc., received or imparted; news; information.

5. the gathering or distribution of information, especially secret information.

"Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this.
I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly,
take a stress pill, and think things over." - HAL 9000

Most wireless routers are not intelligent. Most make no effort to draw correlations between data drawn from their environment such as noise floor, signal strength, geographic location, nearby other wireless devices, interference, channel congestion and other like variables.

In the world of wireless networking there are lots and lots of variables. But most routers are pretty static. You, the user, scan the area during installation time, make a note of what the conditions are at that moment and set your routers' configuration variables to best perform at that point in time. If something changes, then you make changes in the configuration to adapt to the new environment. It is not a question of if there will be changes, it is a question of when they will occur and if they will disrupt your network.

Security networks need to be always on. They need to be high availability, otherwise what good are they? If your security network easily goes down due to interference, congestion, or other changes in the environment, then your video and access control cannot go through.

An intelligent router can make your life a lot easier. It takes more work up front to configure it, but if done correctly, you may never need to service that router again.

A Practical Definition

HauteWRAP
Wireless Intelligent Router

Intelligence for a router means being able to gather data and react to that data in a dynamic way. The main goal is to keep your network functioning at optimal performance.

The first thing you need is sensors or sampling data from your radio interfaces, GPS location, voltage levels, current levels, number of connected clients or peers, CPU utilization, memory utilization and much more. The availability of data is the first step towards intelligence.

Data that you need to be able to read and analyze may include:

Noise - you need to be able to determine if the channel has some type of interference. Did a toaster oven turn on? Did a far away access point some into range? Did a ship just arrive with radar? Did someone take a cordless phone call? Did the welder just come to work to start his shift? If your router can sample the noise floor regularly,
Location - With GPS you can tell where you are and share a common clock time with all of your peers. This is particularly important with mobile routers. With GPS you can tell if you are at your office, at the police station, near a Starbucks or the library, or out in the boondocks. If you know your location, you can change your configuration. At the police station you are in client mode so you can download data to the station network. When you pull away, maybe you go into AP mode and enable your cellular data modem so that you can use your router as a "MiFi" type of device. Then when you get near a Starbucks you go back to client mode so you can use their WiFi in order to reduce data charges. With common time you can cross reference logs, triangulate events, and diagnose problems much better.
Peers - If your router is gathering information on what other devices are in the area, like mesh nodes, APs, or clients you can change the function of your router. If your router sees the SSID for "PoliceStation" then it may go into client mode. If it sees "car2930" then it can go into mesh mode, and if it sees a client named "pda123" or the mac address of some other known client device it could go into AP mode. You can also use device detection for intrusion alarming. If you see a device that you don't expect you can shut it off and report it.
Loading - By tracking CPU load, memory, associated clients, packet traffic, bit errors and other like data you can move traffic off your router before it crashes. You can start forcing disconnections of clients so that they have to reconnect to a different unit, you can apply bandwidth limits, you can deny different types of traffic (video, P2P and more).

These are just a few examples of the type of data you can monitor and actions you might want to take.

Response

Scheduled Script

In order to react to data, you need a programmable mechanism. In our routers we use scripts and schedulers. A script can easily be written by non-programmer types of people. It is a simple Boolean system of checks "if this, then do that". A script can look at any source of data and then react if the data is out of range. A scheduler runs the script at a specified time. You can also have scripts running in the background that look for specific events.

For instance if I have a system that is set for 5GHz (802.11a band) and my script runs from the scheduler every 10 minutes to check the bit errors, noise floor and signal levels. I set a threshold that says "if the signal to noise ratio falls below 20dB, then I want to change to a different channel." And the script moves me within the 5GHz band. Then I find that all channels in 5GHz are poor, I can tell the script to move me to 2.4GHz or 4.9GHz, or 900MHz or some other licensed band that I am allowed to use.

You can go even further and send messages between your routers based on events, sharing data for load balancing, performance, maintenance and more. Combining scripting with email, SMS, HTTP or TCP messaging can be a very powerful combination. You can make your network fully self configuring and self healing, based on the variables you want. Not what the router manufacturer has pre-programmed for you.

Scripting and scheduling are very powerful tools that move your router from being a simple dumb device which you have to visit in order to change and maintain it's configuration, into it being a self-configuring, self-managing system which reacts intelligently to external stimulation and changes to the environment.

HauteSpot provides pre-written sample scripts for a variety of tasks. We can also help you develop custom scripts on a paid consulting basis. Just email support@hautespot.net for more information.

In Situ Spectrum Analysis

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Mon, 3 Dec 2012 21:09:00 -0800

Tomorrow Mike, our pre-sales design engineer is heading up to San Francisco to help one of our customers with a site survey. This comes after, on an industry discussion board, a user asked about which wireless spectrum analyzer was best: Wi-Spy, Air Magnet, AirView or others. This raised a number of issues that I thought were worth discussing. But first...

What is a spectrum analyzer?

A RF spectrum analyzer is a device which measures the amount of energy that exists in a range of frequencies. Basically it "listens" to a preset range of frequencies, samples very quickly over time, and draws a graph showing what it "hears". The chart on the left is an example of what a spectrum analyzer outputs.

The graph on the right shows what a typical OFDM carrier looks like. It has a sharp rise, a flat plateau, and a sharp drop. The space between the rise and drop is called the occupied spectrum. The height of the graph is the amount of energy for the carrier. The lines on the left and right of the occupied spectrum reflect the ambient noise on the channel. The different between the peak of the carrier and the noise floor is the signal to noise ratio. The greater the ratio the stronger your perceived signal is.

The width of the plateau is the channel width. Typically this is going to be 5, 10, 20 or 40 Mhz. So knowing what a normal carrier should look like we can make some basic diagnostics about both the performance of your radio and the environment in which it operates.

If the difference between the peak of your carrier and the noise floor is too small, your preceived signal strength will be poor and you may not get good performance. If you see that your carrier is sloped not so steeply or that there are rises above and below the main carrier, your radio may not be tuned properly. We call these side lobes and if they are too large or the signal bleeds outside what you would otherwise expect, your receiver may drop some of the data that fell into that area. We call this clipping.

If you see measurements of energy that are outside of your carrier or overlapping your carrier, then you may suffer from interference. Devices like arc welders, electric motors, radar, microwave ovens, cordless phones, hair dryers, electric heaters, and even television sets can create interference for wireless devices. Finding these types of problems is what you use a spectrum analyzer for.

What is a Wireless Packet Analyzer?

A wireless packet analyzer receives data from a wireless network. It looks for data that is in a very specific format, for instance 802.11 WiFi frames. A packet analyzer will receive all of the packets that it recognizes. But if it does not recognize the data, it will categorize the energy only as noise, nothing more. It does not measure the amount of energy, the pattern of the energy, or tell you where the energy is coming from.

A packet analyzer is a powerful tool for picking the right channel, assessing it's capacity, and sorting through issues like packet delay, bit errors, packet storms, intrusion detection, and the like. But it is only good when the problems you face are network related and not RF related.

Common Problem

With wireless, unlike fiber and copper networks, once you have installed your network you cannot rely on it functioning properly the next day. Wireless exists in an open environment where things can change from day to day. Unlicensed wireless is even more problematic. Wireless network devices can pop up anywhere within your coverage area, and you can't do anything about it, other than to move out of the way.

It is exactly for this reason that, while a site survey before installation is always a good idea, it is more important that your wireless equipment allow you to diagnose and correct BOTH spectrum issues and network congestion/packet issues at any time after installation.

Solution

Every HauteSpot router includes the capabilities for full packet capture and analysis AND full spectrum analysis. These are very powerful capabilities, particularly when combined with our scripting and SNMP alarm facilities.

For instance, we ship sample scripts with every router that allow you to monitor congestion, noise floor, and even run a spectral scan and then take immediate pro-active action to move to a channel with lower congestion, find a channel with less noise, adjust the channel size to avoid interference. As a client node you can script your router to look for alternate master routers to connect to.

Other scripts allow you to send emails, SMS, SNMP alarm or TCP message over the network to network administrators for action. The possibilities for making your network truly self healing and self configuring are game changing.

The other real value to having integrated spectrum and packet analysis integrated into your installed equipment is that you can do your site survey with the actual equipment you will use, assuring that there is no variation between your measurements and your performance since you are testing with the same gear you install.

Why test with a third party product which may not have the same characteristics, sensitivity, or discretion as the equipment you will use, when you can test with the equipment you will actually use?

A good spectrum analyzer like those from Aniritsu or Agilent can cost tens of thousands of dollars. If your business is commissioning devices for cellular carriers or the like, then this may be a great investment. But if you are a security installer, you can't afford this luxury. If you need to prove regulatory compliance, then a calibrated (annually) spectrum analyzer is required. A uncalibrated system like what is built into our routers is good for operational use, but is not appropriate for compliance testing.

If you buy routers that have good, meaningful spectral analysis capabilities, and the intelligence (through scripting) to act on the reports from your analysis the you will have the infrastructure you need to react quickly, and cost effectively, to changes in your wireless environment as they occur. Often without even having to go on site.

My Dad Walter Henry Ehlers

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:18:00 -0700

1944 Ensign Ehlers receives his commission

I said goodbye to my dad yesterday afternoon. Having spent a couple of days with him and my step mom, Joan. He was asleep the whole time I was there, but I knew he could hear us talking to him, reading the sports section of the paper, and sharing with him some of our daily lives.

Yesterday the Giants were playing against the Cardinals for the National League championship. Dad was a life long baseball fan and, like my grandfather, had a pretty much encyclopedic knowledge of the stats for just about any player and team. As I was driving home I called Joan and asked her to turn the radio on for my dad so he could listen to the game. The Giants won in a complete shut out and are now going to the World Series. I hope my dad had this in his dreams as he slept.

Some time in the middle of the night he passed away. He was 88 and had a long a productive life.

Dad and his dog Micky, whom he always
said was the smartest dog in the world

He lived his entire life in San Francisco, Marin and Petaluma. He grew up in San Francisco in the Sutro Heights area right next to the forest. He went to public schools and graduated from Polytechnic High School, near the old Kezar Stadium when he was only 16. He used to point it out to me when we would go see the 49ers play, before they moved to Candlestick. It was at Poly that he met Albert Fouchy who was instrumental in introducing him to my mom, Aileen.

World War II saw my dad entering the Navy and he went to midshipman's school as UC Berkeley. He received his commission at the age of 20 as an Ensign. He served on LST (landing ship tank) 857 and was in charge of the Quartermasters, meaning that he was responsible for navigation. He used to tell me stories about being in storms in the Pacific and having to plot courses that he was not exactly confident of, yet they would arrive at their destination exactly as planned. He said he was always surprised that they made it anywhere thanks to his poor navigation skills. I think he was just being modest. He was a math wiz.

LST-857

After the War, he came home and on the GI Bill went to San Jose State where he studied accounting. My dad always had a really strong appreciation for my grandfather who had been an accountant, so I think this is what led him to down this path. He graduated and went to work for the accounting firm of LH Penney. He passed his CPA exam and became a specialist in automobile dealer auditing. LH Penney was also where he made his best friends, Lamont "Mac" MacDonald, Bud Sprague, and Bill Thomas. This gang of four went on vacations together, built homes, families and businesses together and were fast friends for their entire lives. I used to call them all "uncle" and remember many adventures shared with them and their families.

While working at LH Penney, Albert Fouchy introduced my dad to my mom, Aileen Ruane. They were married, built their first house, and started to build a life together. Dad changed jobs and went to work for American Trust Bank which was later merged with Wells Fargo. Dad was a loan officer in charge flooring, or lending money to car dealers so they could buy inventory. At that time most car dealerships were family run enterprises and my dad helped a lot of these dealers get started and grow. I can't tell you how many people used to tell me "Walt helped me get started in the industry", or "Walt kept my business going." I think I never really understood how my dad helped so many people. He wasn't a banker, he was an adviser and a trusted friend. This is a theme that he kept throughout his life.

Later on I would hear other stories from people about my dad helping them with tax and estate planning, planning for the care of family members with learning disabilities, helping family members with financials problems of all sorts. He was not really very good with tools, not very good with cooking, cleaning, or other things, but he was great with financial analysis and planning. He never used this skill to make himself rich, although he was comfortable. He used it to help other people. He later even volunteered to do taxes for older folks. It was his way of taking care of others.

The first house my parents built was in Corte Madera. I think they said that the house cost them $16,000 at the time. It was about one block from my aunt Ann and uncle Al Lubamersky's house. Ann was my mom's sister. They helped each other landscape their yards and get their homes set up. Our families would remain close throughout our lives.

My parents moved to their second house in Greenbrae and made the decision to start their family. They could not have children themselves, so they adopted me and later my sister Peggy. The house became too small when they decided to adopt their third child, my sister Chris. So they moved one more time to their home in Larkspur. It was here that the family stayed for the next 20 years. My sisters and I went to grammar school and high school in Larkspur, and eventually went off to college.

Some of Walts Kids and Grandkids

There are just too many stories about growing up in Larkspur, that I cannot even begin to cover them. My dad did his best to help us grow and mature. He tried going on camping trips with me and the Boy Scouts, but he was not much of an outdoors man and hurt his back hiking. He would try to help me practice baseball, but neither of us had very good throwing arms. He was not much good at helping us with homework. But he did succeed in giving both me and my sisters good golf swings, something that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. In the process he managed to break every window in the back of the house by hitting plastic golf balls against it. ("OVER!!!")

In 1984 my mom contracted lung cancer and passed away. My dad was devastated. He really had never had to take care of himself. My sister Chris did her best to help him maintain the house and his life, as Peggy and I were away at school, but he needed a new partner.

Dad and Joan on their bulletin board

Joan and my mom were best friends. Her two kids, Heidi and Amy went to school with us. Joan and mom worked in the PTA together and we had several family activities together. Joan had divorced a few years earlier. She also was there to help my mom during her illness.

My dad and Joan started dating, and before long, they were married. I can only say that it was a relief to us all to have Dad in the hands of someone who loved him and could care for him so well, right up to the end. They were very well matched and, despite some occasional bickering, they were steadfast friends and life partners.

For 27 years they lived and loved together. They first bought a house in Mill Valley, then moved to "I" street in Petaluma, and finally to "the farm" on McSween Road.

Our extended family grew through marriages, the addition of grand children, step grand children and numerous dogs, cats and other animals. I feel particularly lucky to have had the love of two wonderful mothers and four wonderful sisters. I will add photos and names later.

Last month Dad had his 88th birthday and we all got together in Petaluma to wish him well. I am glad we had this last celebration of his life. Also, the Giants winning the National League Pennant was a good parting event for Dad. He was a good man, a good husband, a good parent and a good friend.

Shooky, Shooky

Zombie Apocalypse

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:54:00 -0700

Get Moving you Zombies

Now this is creepy and fun at the same time. Our partner, Strategic Operations, is working with Halo Corporation to stage a training event in San Diego during the last week of October for the military. The event is called The Anti Terrorism Summit and promises to be extraordinarily entertaining.

Strategic Operations is an off shoot of a Hollywood production company who specializes in "hyper realistic" training. They use actors, pyrotechnics, realistic looking buildings, and a range of cinematic techniques to create real sounding, real feeling, and real smelling (yes that too) training. They can simulate almost any situation that you can imagine.

For the last week of October a few thousand people will descend on Paradise Island in the middle of San Diego's Mission Bay. On the island, Halo, with the help of Strategic Operations will be creating a number of different exercises, including hostage rescues, fire fights and Zombie Apocalypse.

See a video about Strategic Operations

Part of the training is full assessment, critique and feedback to the participants on how they perform. This particular exercise will go a little further by providing live streaming feeds from cameras around and on exercise participants. The video streams will be displayed on large screen monitors for a crowd of observers in the grand stands.

HauteSpot Networks is providing to Strategic Operations our microNVRs, together with battery packs, HD Cameras, and a wireless base station. A few lucky participants will get to wear the microNVR in a web belt ammo pack. A small camera will be mounted on their helmet with a band strap, and a thin cord will run from the camera down to the microNVR. HauteSpot's MVE software will store the video on the microNVR at full frame rate and full resolution (1080p@25fps). It will then transmit the video using the microNVR's integrated OFDM radio to a HauteWRAPSX+ MIMO base station "receiver".

This use of the microNVR will allow for live viewing of the action from a first person Point of View (POV) while simultaneously recording everything on the internal SSD drive. Since the microNVR is only 8 watts and runs on 12VDC, we can easily power it from a small battery system for over 8 hours. Light weight, shock and vibration resistant, small, and yet able to store 120GB of video on the SSD and and additional 32GB on the MiniSD card.

HauteSpot powered GER eWRAP
at Baltimore Grand Prix 2012

In these kinds of exercises, as we have learned from our participation in such events as the FEMA National Level Exercise, Operation Capital Shield, and the Baltimore Grand Prix, there is a lot of RF noise and you can't always count on the wireless connections being 100%. With the microNVR, while we are striving to have always connected wireless, if it does go out for a second or two, the integrated storage will keep a record of everything that happens. All this at a fraction of the cost of traditional COFDM based wireless systems.

We think that applications that are similar to The Anti Terrorism Summit include other training events, television production, community policing, guard services, and much more. One idea would be to take this a step further and tunnel the connection over VPN so that the wireless connection could roam between WiFi access points and to and from 3G or 4G cellular. Then the wearer could go almost anywhere, use lower cost, higher bandwidth WiFi when available, and cellular where not.

Anyway, I think we are ready for the Zombies. This Halloween promises to be very interesting. If you are in San Diego on October 31, check out the Ghouls.

Training at APCO

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:36:00 -0700

Lending some insight to an APCO member

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the APCO 2012 event in Minneapolis. APCO is the Association of Public Safety Communication Officials. Basically the group combines 3 different disciplines: Dispatch/E911 operators, Land Mobile Radio (LMR) radio engineers, and IT managers from police and fire departments. So the audience for training at APCO can range from less technical to very technical. Generating a presentation of interest to all is difficult.

The concept that I tried to convey was fairly simple to say, but difficult to describe: use abstractions to create interoperable networks that are carrier and technology independent.

The Importance of VPNs

Most of the audience was aware that VPN (Virtual Private Networks) are useful to link buildings and offices over public networks. Some even had used VPNs to remotely access their office networks. But few realize the value that a VPN presents for interoperability. Public safety operates in a world of many communication technologies. They have:

Land Mobile Radio - Analog radios for voice communication. This is the walkie talkie or the in car radio that the police use.
P25 Radio - This is the digital replacement for LMR.
PSTN - The public telephone network, generally meaning wired
Cellular - All the flavors of cellular from AMPS to GSM to LTE and WiMAX
Private Networks - These are wired networks around a city. Could be fiber, copper or microwave
Public Safety Broadband - This is the 4.9GHz spectrum that was designed to link point to point facilities for redundancy.
765Mhz "D Block" - This is the spectrum that is being planned for the National Public Safety Broadband Network using LTE technology.

Aside from LMR analog, all of the technologies have the ability to route IP packetized data, but they may all be taking different, difficult to manage paths.

My premise was that if you had devices that supported one or more (or maybe even all) of these communication technologies with a VPN client that would create a persistent tunnel (encrypted) these links that fails over between all of the available links, you can create a truly reliable, highly interoperable communication network.

The example I gave was this: say you have a smart phone that supports WiFi, Cellular, and P25 technologies. All of the technologies can be connected at the same time to their respective networks. At the back end you have a dispatcher at a PSAP (Public Safety Access Point or E991 call center) with a connection to the internet. On the cell phone you have a VPN client that connects over IP to the PSAP. Sometimes the connection goes over WiFi, sometimes over Cellular and sometimes over P25. As far as the network is concerned the smartphone and the PSAP are on the same "local area network".

On top of this the cell phone runs a VoIP (Voice Over IP) client application. This application acts just like a multi-line phone attached to a PBX. So the user at the remote end can talk to the dispatcher as easily as they use their wired phone. But now the VoIP phone runs over the VPN and can be routed over WiFi, Cellular, or P25 whichever is available. So if the Cellular network fails, the call can stay connected over P25. You might have a brief (1 or 2 second) drop when the fail over occurs, but you will stay connected.

This same VPN technology can be used for data, voice and even video. The VPN doesn't care about the lower technology, as long as IP can be sent.

National Public Safety Broadband Network

eWRAP multi technology
communication platform
w/VPN

Later in the conference I had an opportunity to attend a talk by Chuck Shaughnessy of Harris who was discussing the plans for a fully integrated nationwide broadband network for public safety. This is just getting started, and his belief was that it would be 20 years before this is rolled out. So in the mean time it became really clear that public safety agencies need an interim plan to move from todays world of non-interoperable networks to the new network. A VPN strategy makes all the sense in the world for this.

Regardless of how a national network rolls out, it is certain that it will support IP and it may still need to be supplemented with other technologies, some including public networks. Using a VPN gives you the ability implement today and then replace the underlying technologies with new technology without having to replace all of your end nodes.

Of course I showed the eWRAP and the microNVR running MVE video as examples of devices that today support multiple communication technologies and VPN.

The next big show is ASIS in Philadelphia. We will have a booth there and can discuss all of this if you stop by.

4G/3G Roaming Support for Public Safety

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 14:36:00 -0700

It has been a while since my last blog post. Too long. This is due to HauteSpot Networks flurry of development. We have been working on solving the tough problems of delivering always connected wireless broadband communications for IP video. This effort is finally starting to bear fruit.

4G/3G Roaming

One of the biggest issues that we have been working on is to build support on our WRAP and the eWRAP routers for seamless roaming between 4G LTE networks (like Verizon) and 3G CDMA/UMTS/HSPA+ networks.

In the current state of broadband routers most have to either lock the modem into either 3G or 4G operation and then manually unlock and switch when roaming from a fixed location to another fixed location, or they undertake some rather dangerous software acrobatics to change the mode of the modem (aircard) by reflashing the EEPROM from a user space application (basically reprogram the modem/aircard function by rewriting its firmware).

Our goal was to integrate into our wireless routers a new driver that takes advantage of the power of the new 4G chipsets, in particular the Qualcomm GOBI 3000/4000 which supports in one package LTE and virtually all of the 3G technologies currently available on the market. The driver needed to seamlessly roam between networks and re-establish connections without any drops and it needed to not make any risky changes to the firmware of the modem on the fly.

The work was much more complex than we could have ever imagined, but we are almost complete. Not only did this require development of the driver, but it also required a complete rewrite of our operating system. This was good as it allowed us to move to a packaged distribution system that supports flexible featuring of our routers that goes way beyond just the 4G support.

In basic terms we now have a completely new platform based on our same reliable hardware that supports high performance mesh, 802.11a/b/g/n AP functions, frequency agility, video encoding and transmission, and even VoIP. All in a low power, embedded, highly secure, highly reliable platform. Our routers will be able to accept a variety of modems from a variety of manufacturers, seamlessly roam between 3G and 4G, and in the future, if the carriers allow, inter-carrier roaming.

We also added support for multiWAN interface aggregation. This allows us to load balance between multiple 3G/4G modems in order to aggregate bandwidth and improve reliability.

The same OS and drivers will be ported to support not only our WRAP and eWRAP products, but also our microNVR and upcoming intelligent cameras.

MVE

One of the key requirements of public safety and commercial security is bandwidth conservation. While 4G is great, it is not, and probably won't be available for a long time, in all areas. Once you leave the metropolitan coverage area you are back to 3G. In international applications this is even more true. So being able to send video over "narrow pipes" such as 3G connections which may only support 100kbps up is critical.

Over the last year we have been working with SentinelAVE on enhancements to the MVE product to improve it's reliability and functionality over narrow pipes. The result is nothing short of incredible. We are now streaming high quality VGA resolution video at 6 to 8fps over 120kbps links. When bandwidth allows we dynamically ramp up to full resolution and full frame rate. At the same time we are recording a full resolution and frame rate for evidence and post event review.

Even if you are on LTE using the MVE is a great choice since carriers are setting transfer limits and charging a lot of money once you go past these limits. By using low bandwidth monitoring until an event occurs, you can significantly reduce your recurring expenses.

The other main development enhancements for MVE are the ability to rebroadcast from a receiving station into either HTTP as MJPEG push or pull, or as RTSP. This allows remote viewing from a single mobile camera by hundreds or even thousands of simultaneous users.

VPN

The last key element of our mobile wireless video strategy is virtual private networking. This technology, which exists in all HauteSpot routers solves a number of issues. The first is that on cellular networks inbound route-able IPv4 addresses are going away. Future wireless networks are built using IPv6 with NAT routing at Internet peering points. This means that you can't get static IP addresses unless you are a law enforcement agency. Even then, the roam-ability of that address remain problematic across many carrier networks.

You need static addressing in order to accomplish remote management. VPN connectivity solves this problem. All you need to do is enable VPN client functions on your HauteSpot WRAP unit, have it connect with a HauteSpot HauteLINK gateway device, and you now have a connection that is persistent. Even if the IP address changes of your remote device, even if you roam from 4G to 3G, even if you plug into a LAN connection, the VPN connection stays on with a static, route-able connection.

The VPN also encrypts your connection, making it nearly impossible for anyone to tamper with your data streams or video.

Tie it all Together

The real value comes when we combine the new WRAP operating system and 4G/3G drivers with Mobile Video Edge and the HauteLINK VPN solution set. This combination allows you to literally put any video device anywhere. As long as there is a cellular carrier or private broadband connection in the area, you can securely move high resolution, high frame rate video and data from your remote site to a central monitoring point and then distribute it back out in real time.

Not just talk, but reality. Check it out. I will be presenting this at the upcoming APCO International Conference in Minneapolis next month. Live demo and all.

The Surreal World of Military Trade Shows

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:06:00 -0700

Over the last 4 days I was an exhibitor at the Defense Services Asia show in Kuala Lumpur. The show was a great success for us and our local partner XV Asia Technology with lots of interest from real customers with real money to spend on all of our products.


Met a friend, Mr. C4i. He packed every electronic gizmo you could imagine into his stylish uniform.

But I have to admit that the show itself was somewhat surreal. It was like a department store of weapons, armor, vehicles, and all manner of other stuff that goes boom.

I met generals, admirals, deputy ministers, police chiefs and all manner of other senior military officials. After a while it became almost mundane to see a flag officer walk by with an entourage of aides and assistants.

Rather than drone on (yes, there were lots of UAVs there too) about the show, I thought it might be more interesting to see some of the items that were being sold.

I left out some of the less impressive things like trucks, bridges, tires, barbed wire and uniforms. There were plenty of all of these items. And of course there were the major corporations selling jets, satellites, helicopters etc.

The really fun stuff was in the Malaysian exhibit area where you could buy mortars, rocket propelled grenades, tanks, missiles, and any other weapon you could imagine. Take a look.

M4 Assault rifles from Walther.
Blue light special at the end
of the show. Buy two,
get a flash suppressor for free!

Of course there were this years
colorful Howitzer rounds. Light Blue
is perfect for any occasion

Defending the free world from itself is a tough job, but with tools like these, it is just a little easier.

Thank goodness there are not terrorist states attending this show. Oh wait, we did have several people from Iran and Syria stop by the booth to ask about our products. We politely said that unlike some of our competitors, we as an American company honor the embargo against your countries. Sorry. We hope the missile and arms dealers at the show did the same.

The show wrapped up today which ended up being our best day. We gave demonstrations to several high ranking officials who were very impressed and wanted to see more.

I am as exhausted as I was when I arrived. Only a couple of more days of training, sales calls and strategy meetings and I am on my way home.

There were night vision googles
that could accessorize any outfit

My personal favorite was the .40 cal Walther
with a matching silencer. Why wake the kids
when taking out your enemies.

There was a lovely assortment
of air to air missiles.

Be the envy of the neighborhood
with your own tank parked in the
driveway.

If an air to air missile is too small,
why not try a surface to air instead.

Could I get any more tired?

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 03:31:00 -0700

So, after a 26 hour transit from San Luis Obispo to Kuala Lumpur, then setting up all day on Sunday, I finally got to sleep after being awake for 44 hours straight. That is a record for me. I only slept for 6 hours and then we started the trade show.

The XV Asia Technology booth was packed to the gills with products, people and collateral. As a late arrival to the show, XV Asia did not get the best location, but this did not seem to matter. We had a good, steady flow of people who were all interested in virtually all of the products.

Murad and Helena schmoozing with
Rear Admiral Dato Nasuruddin Bon Othman

The Immersive Video Dodeka 2360 camera was a great draw and people were very interested in the fully spherical view that the system captured. It brought a lot of people to the booth. Once at our door, they almost all asked about the Global Emergency Resources eWRAP, which inevitably led to a discussion of wireless, then the challenges of moving video, which led to the MVE product based on Sentinel AVE technology and the microNVR.

As this is a military show, there were lots of weird products that I will try to capture over the next two days.

Anyway, time for dinner, then bed. Hopefully I will sleep through the night. Tomorrow we have delegations from Russia, Thailand and the Philippines coming to visit us.

Traveling to DSA Asia

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 05:29:00 -0700

I am sitting at the Narita airport connection terminal waiting for my connection to Kuala Lumpur. What am I doing here?

Two weeks ago we were at ISC West. What a great show for us. Anyway, one of our new partners, XV Asia Technology flew all the way out from Malaysia to see us. They are an exciting company who is aggressively pursuing new video technologies for both entertainment and surveillance. A look at their web site will give you an idea of what they are doing. They are very innovative in their cross-application of technology between various vertical markets.

Anyway, as a result of the visit at ISC West, XV Asia asked us to work with them on pulling together a trade show presence for the Defense Services Asia exhibition which runs April 16-19th in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Always up for a challenge we started to organize a booth for displaying the MVE™ and Mobile Video Vault™ solutions.


Immersive Video Hipervision Camera

Along with this, we will also be showing a live streaming video backhaul system for use with the Immersive Video 360 degree camera. XV Asia has already tested this system and are pleased with the results. They have worked hard to make this system a reality. Basically now we can stream using a HauteSpot WRAP router system from the Hipervision camera to a remote viewing station from almost anywhere. Allow live events to add a cool new video element to their web presence.

If you are in KL for the show come by and see us!

More soon....plane is boarding

Real American Hero

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:35:00 -0700

Now I can say I personally know a real American hero.

Paul is interviewed by CBS News

This week is the ISC West 2012 show in Las Vegas. As most of you know, HauteSpot is exhibiting. One of our good customers is Paul Babakitis of PGB Executive Investigations from New York. Just last week I spoke to Paul and he said that he was going to be coming out to Vegas for the show and that he would definitely stop by.

What happened next was all over the news. Paul was on a JetBlue plane from New York to Las Vegas. During the flight the pilot flipped out and wanted to crash the plane. Paul, as a retired NYPD Sergeant leaped into action and helped subdue and restrain the pilot until the flight could safely land.

Paul and Charlotte share a smile

Paul helped save the lives of all of the passengers on the plane. So today, when Paul actually arrived at our booth at Las Vegas, we all cheered for him and were glad to have our friend, business associate and hero safely arrive at the show. Personally I don't know if I would be getting back on a plane right after an event like this happened.

Paul, everyone at HauteSpot salutes you and your bravery. Now we all know a real hero.

Awesome Day at ISC West

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:10:00 -0700

I am completely exhausted. Today was one of the busiest first days of any trade show we have been to. In our booth we had hundreds of visitors checking out Mobile Video Vault, MVE and HD Witness.

Getting set up before the show

The demonstration network that we set up with a wireless 5GHz link to the Network Optix booth and a wireless 3.65GHz link to the Veracity booth both were up and working flawlessly throughout the entire show. As some of you may know, getting any wireless to work on a trade show floor at all is a challenge. We were achieving full data rates and throughput. This was achieved by running our TDMA like protocol and our frequency flexibility.

Kelvin Chung from SentinelAVE did a great job of configuring the microNVRs and Mobile Video Edge application to use Clear WiMAX to keep a rock solid wireless connection to Los Angeles. Throughout the entire day we ran live demos from our video server in Los Angeles over 4G without any hiccups. Customers were able to view live and recorded video from Los Angeles at high resolution and high frame rate.

Bob doing some last minute futzing

After almost being knocked out by a monitor that fell off it's mount, Mark Armstrong of SoleraTec set up Mobile Video Vault microNVR running in our booth and sending archive video every 5 minutes to the Veracity Coldstore server in the Veracity booth over wireless. This too ran well throughout the entire day.

We had no time to go look around the show floor, but judging from the comments from the crowd, we had the coolest new product offerings at the show.

The final show booth result

Also, Mike, Max and Aaron did an outstanding job of manning the booth and engaging with customers. They were able to answer most of the questions customers raised, and let myself and Wes handle the more complex questions. The level of professionalism of our staff is something I am very proud of and I know our customers appreciate.

Two more days to go. If you are in Vegas, come by and see us. Booth 9139, way in the back...near the food concession.

ISC West 2012 HauteSpot is GO!

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:50:00 -0700

ISC West Preview

After a week of futzing with demo set ups, cranking out new marketing material, setting up meetings, and all the rest, we are ready to GO!
      
       I       wanted to share with you just a few of the really cool things that       we at HauteSpot       will be bringing with us to ISC West this year in the hopes that you       might find them

 interesting enough to stop         bye and check out.       We are in booth 9139 (way in the back...). This year we have made some amazing technological strides,       together       with our partners in innovation.

One of the first things       I       hope you will notice is that we have changed our focus from being       a       "Wireless" solution company to being a "Connectivity" solutions       company. We like to think of ourselves as the connective tissue or       nervous system linking your extremities (cameras, remote devices,       sensors and the like) with your core organs (VMS, Information       Management Systems). We have become more technology agnostic,       embracing       things as LTE, WiMAX, VSAT, White Space and Virtual Private       Networks,       in addition to our existing 802.11, TDMA and video processing       products.       Our demonstrations at ISC West reflect these changes. Basically we       want       to partner with you to take the network beyond the boundaries and       limitations that you face today.

MOBILE         VIDEO VAULT - Working       with our partner SoleraTec,       we have built the BLACK BOX of the       transportation and public safety industries. The Mobile Video       Vault       runs on our compact microNVR      (you know, the 4"x4"x1", 8 watt, 12 volt,       500 Gigabyte, Dual Core 2 Gigahertz micro computer router), we add       the       SoleraTec Phoenix         RSM software which gathers data from GPS, vehicle       diagnostics, audio, lightbars, sirens, etc, along with high       definition       video, then it watermarks it, locks it up tight for evidence and       stores       it. When the vehicle gets to a transfer point, HauteSpot high       speed       wireless transfers it for archiving. All of the data is searchable       and       cross referenced. Want to know what it looks like to drive a       school bus       40 miles an hour over railroad crossings? We can show you? Want to       see       how hard the brakes were applied and the GPS deceleration record       just       before that accident, with video, we have that. High definition,       small       size, low power, all IP. 
      
      We will be capturing video in our       booth, storing in on the microNVR and transferring over a wireless       link       across the show floor to the Veracity         booth for storage on their ColdStore       network storage array. 
      
      MVE - Sometimes you       need to see what is happening in high quality, fast frame rate, in       real       time, and you need to do it over the public cellular network,       satellite, or other low quality network. Working with our partner       SentinelAVE we have built       the MVE. Again, using the       microNVR platform we built a compact mobile platform that can       stream       live, rate adaptive, high quality video over the narrowest network       pipe. Sentinel's software goes beyond just compression, it is       connection aware and creates and keeps persistent links going over       3G,       4G, Satellite or even dial up. In as little at 100kpbs good       quality       situational awareness video can be used to monitor remote       locations.  MVE also monitors location data and stores video for       later retrieval.


      Watch us link to video coming in from Los Angeles, a Las Vegas       parking lot, San Luis Obispo, and from around the ISC West show       floor       all over 3G and 4G

HD           WITNESS - For the most           amazing High Definition video surveillance           experience, our friends at Network Optix have ported their HD           Witness           VMS system onto the           microNVR as well. This video processing software           defines a new standard in the industry for display, transport           and ease           of use. It is truly stunning how simple it is to use, how           quickly it           sets up, and how responsive it is on hardware as small as the           microNVR.           Come by and see us run the HD Witness on a microNVR over           wireless links           to the Network           Optix booth.

         Of course we will also be           showing           our new HauteLINK           Virtual Private Network          gateway and remote router,           our WRAPxXG           Gigabit wireless routers,           and much more. Our whole           HauteSpot pre-sales design team will be on hand to answer any           questions           you have. So please come by with your design questions. We           will be           happy to answer them.

        This year is shaping up to be           a great one           and between you, our awesome customers, and our excellent           partners we           think we have a winning team.

Thank you and I hope to see you soon.

Walgreen Distribution Center Deploys HauteSpot Video Solution for Monitoring Robots

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:55:00 -0700

HauteSpot Networks Corporation, recently announced the national deployment of HauteSpot wireless in Walgreens distribution centers. The video system provides Walgreens’ warehouse personnel with a new level of security and efficiency.

San Luis Obispo, CA., March 16, 2012 – HauteSpot Networks Corporation, an international provider of wireless video surveillance and security solutions, recently announced the national deployment of HauteSpot wireless in Walgreens distribution centers. HauteSpot Networks also announced Firetrol Protection Systems, as its newest system integrator. The Dallas based integrator joined with HauteSpot Networks to design and promote HauteSpot’s security and industrial automation technology.

The innovative video system was installed in the Dallas, TX distribution center. The solution used the HauteWRAP™, a high-performance wireless router, and the HauteSHOT™ microNVR, a compact network video recorder. The HauteSHOT™
microNVR is among the smallest IP recording devices on the market. It measures 4x4x1 inches, solely consumes 8 watts, and operates on 12VDC.

“HauteSpot was able to design and provide a world class wireless megapixel video solution,” said Ron Walthall of Firetrol Protection Systems. “The wireless video signal was transmitted over a completely different frequency so it did not interfere with the customer’s existing WiFi, this made the IT managers happy.”

The video system provides Walgreens’ warehouse personnel with a new level of security and efficiency. The HauteSHOT microNVR allows warehouse employees to safely and remotely monitor the movement of robotic pallet machines within the distribution center using high-definition and real time video streaming. The operators can determine if malfunctions with the robotic machines warrant manual assistance or can be remotely overridden. Thus, reducing the number of repair personnel on the warehouse floor and minimizing the liability with machinery.

“The customer has been so impressed with the system, they have asked us to install identical systems at other facilities around the country,” said Walthall. “I know HauteSpot stands behind their products and have the technical expertise to handle any size wireless video recording situation.”

The Second Elephant Seal Cam Goes On Line

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Thu, 8 Mar 2012 22:52:00 -0800

Ano Nuevo
About 5 years ago we helped the California State Park at Ano Nuevo install a live 2 mega pixel wireless web camera on the elephant seal rookery island about 1/2 mile off the coast. The camera is a PTZ and was linked to the visitors center using a 5GHz link. At the visitor center, rangers could steer the camera and display the images of bulls fighting, cows giving birth, and pups playing on the beach all in HD to the visitors.

The visitors center was linked to the outside world over a fairly unreliable T-1 (that is 1.544Mbps) and the camera used MJPEG, so the bandwidth was just not sufficient for good web browsing. The techs with the Parks were able to transcode the video down to QCIF and slow frame rate and get it on their web page here http://parks.ca.gov/?page_id=25732 .

Everything was good until about 4 months ago when a pelican built its nest on top of our parabolic antenna. The nest pushed the antenna out of alignment and now the video is only available when the tide is in the perfect level where the signal reflects off the water at just the right angle.

At some point the biologists will allow the techs to fix the antenna, once the pelican chicks are hatched.

Piedras Blancas

So about 9 months ago I was up at Piedras Blancas, just north of San Simeon, watching the elephant seals there, which I think put on a much more interesting show. You can get much closer to the animals and there seem to be many more of them.

While I was there I had a conversation with one of the docents about installing a solar powered camera along the beach. After going back and fourth over design for several months and working through budgeting, the State was able to pull together a project to install the system. Last week that project was commissioned.

The link runs from the beach about 1.5 miles up to the old lighthouse where there is a T-1. The system uses a pair of HauteSpot WRAPSTATION LX units and is completely solar powered.

It is pretty remote, and the link is pretty slow, not because of the wireless, but because of the wire going up to the lighthouse. We thought about shooting a wireless link back from the lighthouse to Hearst Castle, but the broadband speed was not any better there than at the lighthouse.

Check it out... http://www.slostateparks.com/eseal.htm

Appropriate Use Of Solar

bob@hautespot.net (Bob EHlers) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:17:00 -0800

We are getting asked more frequently to size and quote solar powered surveillance systems. I thought it might be a good time to talk about this topic and correct some common misconceptions people have about solar power.

First, solar, like wireless, should be still viewed as a technology of last resort in most cases. It raises costs, causes aesthetic concerns, creates installation issues, and increases complexity. If you can wire, you should wire. That said, if you have to install a camera in a location where there is no infratructure (power or communications) then wireless and solar may be your best options.

Second, you must look at power conservation as much as power generation. The difference between 10 watts and 40 watts is the difference between a small, attractive and cost effective system and a large, ugly, expensive system. Be prepared to make compromises in order to move to a solar powered system.

Before I go into the specifics of sizing and configuring a solar powered surveillance system, I wanted to share with you a related story that illustrates my points on a larger scale.

Solving the Wrong Problems
Our local school district just undertook what seemed on the face of it to be a great project to install solar at the high school and various elementary schools around town. The project is known as a PPA or Power Purchase Agreement. This is where an installer provides all of the installation of equipment for "free" in exchange for a purchase agreement where the school promises to purchase the power from the panels installed for the next 30 years at a fixed rate. The installer generates power for the school on site and sells it to the school. Surplus power is sold on behalf of the school to the local power utility in order to off set the cost of the solar panels.

Massive Solar "Carports" being built for "free"

Remember that the school already had grid power and infrastructure. It had built it's consumption based on grid supply. The lights, the computers, the communications systems, etc were all installed without any thought to the limits of being run from solar. So you are now retrofitting a system that was never designed for solar to run from panels. It is a backward way of looking at the problem.

My political commentary: The school district didn't have to seek any approvals for the project, since they were not undertaking a capital project, but rather just committing to buy power from a "utility" and all of the equipment was "free". Of course "free" means that it is paid for by tax incentives, credits, and other direct government subsidies that come from agencies hidden from public scrutiny. The cost of the project to the school district is $14 million over the life of the contract which is reflected as electricity costs. But as an operating expense, it did not require any review.

The entire viability of the project is dependent on reverse metering sales of electricity back to the local power utility at rates assumed to be much higher than today. If the market stays flat or competition from other schools doing the same thing heats up, then they could lose millions, or have to take draconian measures to conserve energy in order to make ends meet. This also does not figure in the increased consumption that more computers in the classroom would required or depletion in solar cell efficiencies over time (in other words in the outer years, when you expect to have the most net benefit, the solar panels are their least efficient).

And of course the actual cost to the tax payer of the project is much higher than "free". The subsidies incurred for the project can run as much as 70% of the capital equipment costs. But since the subsidies are paid out of different government budgets than the schools it is impossible to hold anyone accountable to pull the spider web in. So we as tax payers are really overpaying for power by about $9.8 million and taking a large risk that the school will run out of capacity in later years.

Solar makes sense if you design for solar from the start, avoid inversion (converting from DC to AC), use power efficient equipment, and plan for capacity growth in the future.

Building the Right Solution
My main point from the story above is: when undertaking a solar project, plan for solar. Pick your cameras with power consumption in mind, pick your wireless routers with power consumption in mind, pick your storage solution with power consumption in mind, then size your solar system to fit the need.

Lets start with a simple perimeter parking lot camera. This camera is remote from any power or communication and needs to use long distance (2km) wireless and solar. There is a requirement for good facial detail, for criminal prosecution, and we need always on situational awareness.

Solar Insolation Map Shows Peak Solar Hours per Day

Normally, a security installer might pick a PTZ camera in an outdoor speed dome with a heater blower and a wireless router for an application like this. But that configuration might be 40 to 50 watts per hour. You have to run your system 24 hours a day, so that means that you need to make 960 watts per day. In most parts of the lower 48 states you have about 4 hours that you can charge, so you need to make about 240 watts per hour, just to run your equipment. But then you also have to allow for batteries to run when the sun doesn't shine. Let's allow for 3 dark days, which is generally accepted industry standard, so you need to make 3x240 watts per hour or 720 watts per hour. That is a lot of power and a lot of panels. If you used 135 watt panels that are 2 feet x 4 feet you need 6 panels. Then we also need a battery, battery box and charge controller.

A conventional surveillance
system requires a big solar system

One of the most overlooked elements of solar installations is the mounting of the panels. If you use a light pole you need to make sure that the pole can handle the wind loading of the panels and carry the weight of the battery box. You may need to reinforce the foundation of the pole by pouring a concrete pad. This all adds up to additional expense.

A small scale solar power solution
runs a system that is well designed

Now, if we design for solar, we can use a 3 megapixel camera with electronic PTZ and no heater/blower. The total power for such as system with a HauteSpot WRAP wireless router is less than 10 watts. That means we only need 2 panels for the same application. If we can make do with only two dark days, then we are down to one panel.

If you design the system for low power consumption, then you can size the power generation for small scale too.

What about Cellular?
Now, say you have to go way off the beaten path. You want to put your camera where you only have 3G cellular, but you need live real time streaming, you want high definition so you can see who is causing trouble.

Using conventional thinking you might use a PIR motion detector to trigger the camera to come on for a short time, transmit its video and then turn off again. The problem is that you only get low resolution and you only get it for a short time. Try now running a microNVR with the same low power camera and a 3G modem. Again, at less than 12 watts total, you could run this solution all day on two panels. The microNVR can record at high resolution 24x7 and using transcoding software we can send high quality, high frame rate video for situational awareness over 3G.

Again, design the system correctly and the power requirements can be small, the solar panels can be small,