The project has a focus on how to get Public Safety Broadband Network (PSBN) systems into the field in a way that supports mission-critical needs. Such deployments can be made to locations via a road vehicle or, more generally in Canada, need to be made to places that cannot be reached by road. Therefore, we must field test our testbed and drive it to increasingly  higher levels of portability.

Two core field tests/demonstrations are planned, with initial sites located in the rugged interior of British Columbia and in the sub-Arctic and mountainous Yukon. SFU’s Advanced Mobile Emergency Communications facility will directly support all initial system tests and development, as well as in-field testing and demonstrations in British Columbia. The Yukon test is currently planned to take place in a more remote environment and will use a highly portable field system. We are looking for the opportunity to perform further field tests – please contact us if you believe it would be important to see how future Public Safety communications can work at your location and for your organization!

In addition to this, our testbed is increasingly operational and we are now in near-continuous testing and development in the Greater Vancouver region.

Our first test will be in October 2014. For details, see our DUNE2014 page.