Alcyone Systems considered the harsh environment in which the First Responders operate under, in developing its robust architecture. The responders are constantly mobile, the topology changes, interference occurs when multiple transmissions take place over (possibly different) links on the same or different codes and simultaneous real-time multimedia traffic must also be supported as well as data traffic. The network must also be able to operate when there is no stable communication infrastructure or central control.

For the above environment and scenarios, our architecture and networking algorithms supports the ability to rapidly deploy radio communications infrastructure in an adhoc manner and provide reliable and uninterruptible communication in harsh propagation conditions.

The limited access to GPS satellites also requires auxiliary sensors and integration algorithms to supplement GPS in such environments in order to resolve navigational blackouts. Our architecture takes advantage of Multiple Spatial Sensors along with Multiple Bio & Environmental Sensors utilizing an UWB Wireless Body Area Network for connectivity to external sensors and antennas. This same UWB network is used to connect multiple personnel by creating clusters in a reconfigurable Ad-Hoc network as shown below.

Alcyone Systems novel approach integrates the GPS system with a decentralized UWB Wireless Network clusters whose topology is continuously changing, self-adapting to the connectivity and propagation conditions and to the traffic and user mobility patterns.

Furthermore, the network supports a high degree of survivability; failure of a single or collocated entities has no effect on the performance of the rest of the network. The network also provides guaranteed (QoS) for real-time video traffic without requiring a fixed infrastructure.