Raytheon Co. has released a mobile app for first responders that provides reliable and secure real-time communications, situational awareness and a suite of robust collaboration capabilities for groups of users on smartphones, tablets and mobile data computers. One Force® Mobile Collaboration is a complete end-to-end system.
"Developed and tested in Southern California, One Force received input during the product development cycle from local first responders to create a tool that would meet their unique needs in the field," stated Dan De Sollar, director of the Public Safety Regional Technology Center for Raytheon's Network Centric Systems business. "Recognizing that each department and region will have its own specific requirements, One Force was designed to allow for user customization."
Raytheon leveraged experience from commercial and military technology to design One Force with a rich set of capabilities, including voice, maps, drawing tools, chat, real-time position tracking with GPS, streaming video and image sharing.
"For most first responders, the personal cell phone they carry has significantly more communications capabilities than their traditional police radio," said TJ Kennedy, director of Public Safety and Security for Raytheon's NCS business. "However, a civilian cell phone is not optimized for public safety use. The One Force application brings together the best of both worlds: access to smartphone technology and the customizable features that first responders need to get their jobs done."
By improving communication between groups, through both voice and data collaboration, One Force enables faster decision cycles and greater efficiency of department assets for public safety professionals. One Force supports an evolving incident in the field through the integration of existing and emerging technologies to maximize response effectiveness.
One Force allows departments to use existing hardware and infrastructure operating on networks with 2G, 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi. The system performs equally well over low data rate radio and tactical radio networks, and it has heterogeneous network capabilities among responders. Device platforms supported include Android™, iOS® and Windows®.