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A Kinetic Mesh network ’ s mobility means that nodes can be placed in police , fire and emergency vehicles as well as in static locations , and the network travels with the vehicles . For example , three vehicles driving down a road with nodes in them are all connected to each other as well as to any nodes on poles , drones flying overhead , etc ., and all work in concert . If another vehicle with a node joins , the network adjusts immediately and that vehicle is then connected .
During emergency operations , any vehicle with a node in it can be the first on the scene and act as the first broadcast point for all other emergency personnel and vehicles arriving ; a wireless network that runs point to point would require getting the vehicle with the access point to the scene first . This mobility also allows a faster response time as well as proactive intervention . In the case of a flood or widespread fire , even if multiple utility poles with nodes attached go down , the network reroutes and stays up .
Security Video Applications Many municipalities are eager to improve the quality and quantity of their security video , but budgetary constraints cripple efforts to upgrade control rooms and add infrastructure such as cameras .
Kinetic Mesh facilitates distributed video processing by supporting HD video processing at the network edge . Surveillance cameras plug into a node that has powerful computer processing power as well as a terabyte of solid state memory . High-definition video from the camera is stored in the wireless node on the utility pole and can be accessed directly from a Web browser without additional processing , enabling control room functionality from anywhere . Nodes can also be added to police cars with dashboard cameras and as the cars move around town , that video joins the data stream .
Cities do not necessarily need to have a lot of money in the budget to start implementation ; they can start with just a few assets , being strategic about where they place them , and add more over time
July-Aug 2016 Edition
– and Kinetic Mesh ’ s scalability means that any number of cameras can be added at any time , improving the network without any reconfiguration . This is helpful to city planners , who often need to think years into the future when retrofitting or adding new infrastructure .
There is also a public service element to having cameras on a Kinetic Mesh network , as the cameras can be used for functions like detecting empty parking spaces in real time .
Having the cameras on the Kinetic Mesh network also can assist in legal proceedings . After an incident , occasionally a police officer takes the security video off a camera on a pole and stores it in a hard drive or on a desktop computer . This can interfere with the chain of evidence in a court case , as it could be argued that the video was tampered with at some point between coming off the pole and arriving in court .
Video on a Kinetic Mesh network comes with cryptographic assurance that data flowing through the network has not been tampered with , which can help court cases by proving the video is accurate . The wireless nodes have the technical capacity to allow implementation of ancillary public safety features such as license plate or facial recognition software . The software could be embedded into the wireless node itself and run on the network . The terabyte of storage in each node would allow for these applications as well as 30 days of highdefinition video storage .
Case in Point : Media , Pa . Media , Pa ., installed a six-camera network running on Rajant ’ s Kinetic Mesh wireless network in October 2014 . Media has budget challenges like many small towns , and the scalability of the Kinetic Mesh network and wireless nodes meant it could strategically implement video assets in a few key areas . The six-camera installation allows video surveillance and also acts as a police force multiplier for the borough ; police officers cannot be every-
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