Effective emergency and natural disaster management depend on the efficient mission-critical voice and data communication between first responders and victims. Land Mobile Radio System (LMRS) is a legacy narrowband technology used for critical voice communications with limited use for data applications. Recently Long Term Evolution (LTE) emerged as a broadband communication technology that has a potential to transform the capabilities of public safety technologies by providing broadband, ubiquitous, and mission-critical voice and data support. For example, in the United States, FirstNet is building a nationwide coast-to-coast public safety network based of LTE broadband technology. This paper presents a comparative survey of legacy and the LTE-based public safety networks, and discusses the LMRS-LTE convergence as well as mission-critical push-to-talk over LTE. A simulation study of LMRS and LTE band class 14 technologies is provided using the NS-3 open source tool. An experimental study of APCO-25 and LTE band class 14 is also conducted using software-defined radio, to enhance the understanding of the public safety systems. Finally, emerging technologies that may have strong potential for use in public safety networks are reviewed.
@article{arxiv.1509.08316,
title = {A Survey on Legacy and Emerging Technologies for Public Safety Communications},
author = {Abhaykumar Kumbhar and Farshad Koohifar and Ismail Guvenc and Bruce Mueller},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.08316},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
Accepted at IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials