Talking cars a thing of the present for Mahwah P.D.

[SCPD]

http://www.news12.com/NJ/topstories/article?id=221536


11/28/08) MAHWAH - The Mahwah police department has a new crime-fighting weapon in its arsenal that comes right out of a 1980s TV show.

For the first time in Bergen County, officers can command computers in their vehicles to search motor vehicle and criminal databases for feedback with the simple voice command “records check.”

Voice commands also activate emergency lights, sirens, the radar gun, a video camera and can change radio frequencies. Microsoft Mary, whose computer-generated voice comes through a 12-inch screen in the car, delivers results instantly.

"There's a lot going on in the car,” Officer William Hunt, a 10-year veteran of the Mahwah Police Department says. “Not having to look down and take your eyes off the road is a big advantage.”

The cruiser was developed by engineers at the University of New Hampshire, who began working on "Project54" with the goal of integrating all of the electronic devices in police cars.

The system will also be installed in several of the Mahwah Fire Department’s emergency vehicles.

 

[Alarmguy]

For those who don't have a cablevision account to login to news12, this was also covered in sundays bergen record with a video and article here: http://www.northjersey.com/news/VIDEO_At_his_beck_and_call.html
Here is a link to the designer of the system: http://www.project54.unh.edu/

 

[Alarmguy]

The News12 video is a little better. Note how the officer says 1116 to 657 on Channel 3. Anybody know what frequency that is??? I always had Mahwah PD 3 as 460.4250 88.5 in simplex mode, haven't heard anything on it lately. Also anyone catch the display on "RAMSEY PD2" curious if anyone has that in their notes or radios too.

 

[SCPD]

Sorry about the link. I forgot about the restriction to non-cablevision customers. Going to N12 has been 2nd nature to me.

I'll try next time to post a URL from a non-restricted website.

 

[RocketNJ]

I was involved a little with the UNH Project 54 assisting with interfacing the Project 54 computer to the Astro Spectra integrated voice and data radio. Conventional VHF Astro channel carrying both voice and data.

Very neat system. The interface iin the car s quite small and works very effectively.

Good to see the project expanding to the real world.

 

[SCPD]

http://www.54ward.com/

 

[RocketNJ]

Here's a link to the UNH Project 54.
http://www.project54.unh.edu/index.html

Here's a link to a demo video
http://www.project54.unh.edu/overview/demo.html

 

[mondaro]

sounds like another toy to me.

 

[comsec1]

keep it simple s

just one more link in a public saftey communications system that can fail, public saftey radio sets should be designed with the minimum amout of technology needed to accomplish the task.

 

[RocketNJ]

But you can still manually control the devices. So if the voice command interface fails, you turn the channel selector on the radio or hit the switch for lights & siren.

Let's say your radio is on channel 1 and you want to switch to channel 38 for a seldom used interop channel during a pursuit when you cross county boundaries. Without the P54 interface you would have to take your eyes off the road during a high speed pursuit to see the radio's display. With P54 you would hit the voice button and speak the channel name. (the dispatcher should be directing the pursuit as to which channel to switch to).

If I were driving 100+ mph during a pursuit, I'd rather have the P54 interface.

NHSP have been using P54 for over 5 years now. I'm sure the union would have had something to say if it failed and was a safety issue.

 

[APX8000]

I've seen it and used it. Everything you can do through the computer you can still do manually. So like RocketNJ said, if the computer fails, you can still push buttons the "old fashioned way."

The problems are with the users. I read how Mahwah was going to put them in Fire Department vehicles. I can't even get the old timers in my dept to understand the difference between the repeater channel and the talkaround channel.