Spotlight
Research: Crime-Busting Technology
| College of Engineering
You've just spotted a child fitting the general description of a missing child who is the subject of an Amber Alert received on your mobile phone. Quick, what do you do?
You snap a photo with your phone and send it to police dispatchers who can see the photo and know where it came from because the transmitted image includes a GPS "stamp" with the photo on a Google Map.
It's a scenario made possible by five USF researchers who were recently awarded a patent for their wireless emergency reporting system. The system sends and receives notifications to cell phones in a defined geographic area.
The patented method provides emergency information to and from a centralized location over a wireless network. It uses cell phones in emergency communications, leveraging location-aware technologies and security applications. The easy-to-use system serves as a high-tech neighborhood watch, enabling law enforcement to access the eyes and ears of the public simultaneously via available cell phones.
The researchers, from the university's College of Engineering and Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR), received the patent for their "Wireless Emergency-Reporting System" in October. The inventors group includes Sean Barbeau, CUTR research associate and computer science and engineering doctoral candidate; Philip Winters, director of CUTR's Transportation Demand Management Program; Rafael Perez, computer science and engineering professor; Miguel Labrador, associate professor of computer science and engineering; and CUTR senior research associate Nevine Georggi.
Crime-busting isn't the only application for the new technology. The system would allow emergency planners to communicate with users in an evacuation scenario, such as a hurricane or other natural disaster.
Communicating with the public in emergency situations is a growing issue as more and more households are dropping their land lines and moving to wireless-only service.