May 08, 2013
Hawaii State Civil Defense leads the public in prevention, protection and rapid assistance during disasters. To uphold its mission, Hawaii is upgrading its emergency warning sirens and using satellite machine-to-machine (M2M) devices developed by SkyWave Mobile Communications instead of its legacy VHF radio system. In the case of emergency, residents and visitors are now notified in real time reliably through a superior siren warning system.
To transmit warnings ranging from tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes to hazardous material spills and explosions, the State was relying on decades old VHF/800MHz radio transmitters that were breaking down and were failing to communicate about emergency situations. With the system's life cycle waning and a federal mandate to upgrade radios to modern standards, Hawaii State Civil Defense developed a system running new sirens on solar panels, satellite terminals, cellular backup and batteries.
Modernizing to a satellite/cellular solution was a fiscally responsible choice for the government. "When you amortize the cost of leasing satellite and cellular networks and the hardware purchases, the upgrade project offers clear cost-effective advantages," says George Burnett, telecommunications Branch Chief for Hawaii's State Civil Defense.
In the first phase of the project, eight prototypes were installed on Oahu with both SkyWave satellite equipment and cellular antennas that activate the sirens and transmit data from a siren to the central office. With the success of the prototype phase, Hawaii subsequently installed or retrofitted sirens across Oahu. The next county to convert is Maui. When completed there will be a total of 490 sirens running on the satellite/cellular system.
The system is ideally suited for applications requiring high levels of redundancy. Sirens are no longer burdened with hit or miss connectivity. According to Tom Simon, Systems Engineer at Hawaii State Civil Defense, "The sat/cell solution gives us better ability to expand in areas where we don’t have radio coverage. Everywhere we have a siren currently installed, we're able to verify that cellular and satellite service is available. This is the most foolproof way to make sure that the sirens will sound during an emergency."
With a limited number of technicians to maintain sirens, replacing the radio system with satellite/cellular technology allows the team to put more effort into the sirens themselves. The new system includes the ability to query and change the status of specific sirens; confirm that sirens operate as expected during tests and emergencies; monitor the solar charger, battery voltage; and alert authorities if someone intrudes into the system.
"As the lead system integrator and supplier on the project, we are pleased to be utilizing the SkyWave product as the satellite element of a redundant communications network for our command and control system. Incorporating SkyWave into our sat/cell communications schema was a key element in implementing the most state-of-the-art system available today," says John VonThaden, VP/General Manager for Federal Signal's Safety and Security Group, Alerting and Notification Division.