US Ignite: Focus Area 1: SafeEdge - Dynamic Public Safety Response through a Municipal Software Defined Infrastructure

University Of Utah, Salt Lake City UT

Investigators

Abstract

This project addresses the unique challenges associated with rural smart and connected cities and specifically the public safety needs of such communities. Our open access/multi-service approach will allow municipalities to deploy a variety of services, thus addressing concerns about the economic feasibility of deploying broadband services in small and rural communities, while at the same time ensuring that public safety applications can function in this environment. Our aim is that our work would serve both as a living lab in which to explore smart and connected applications for rural cities and also to serve as a model deployment for these smaller communities. Existing broadband networks are not well suited to satisfy the needs of public safety applications. It is economically infeasible to deploy dedicated public safety networks and existing broadband networks cannot provide the necessary protection/priority to public safety applications, thus running the risk that public safety communication will be interfered with precisely when it is most needed. We argue that the emergence of open access municipal software defined networks (SDNs), and more broadly municipal software defined infrastructures (SDIs), is a key enabler to address these concerns and to revolutionize public safety applications. Towards realizing this vision, we propose a collaborative research program, called SafeEdge. We propose to: (i) Develop example next generation applications associated with the needs of a smart and connected small city. Our specific focus will be on public safety applications, i.e., institutional public safety applications as well as citizen-enabled public safety applications. However, to evaluate the multi-service nature of our environment, and the feasibility of mixing public safety applications with other applications and services, we will also explore non-public safety applications, e.g., dynamic remote classroom access, dynamic access to judicial functions, (remote arraignment, remote access to legal representation) etc. (ii) Explore the network abstractions, mechanisms and primitives required to support future public safety applications within the context of an open service municipal software defined infrastructure. We will specifically develop resource management mechanisms and algorithms to enable dynamic creation and/or modification of virtual network instances, and to provide appropriate prioritization of resources associated with public safety applications. We will also develop a flexible network access framework to enable the dynamic nature of next generation (public safety) applications. (iii) Use the municipal software defined infrastructure deployed in the City of Ammon, ID, to realize an example rural open service ecosystem and to form the physical broadband infrastructure on which we will be piloting our research.