ATT "Portable Cellular Tower" & Indoor Location
Posted on Fri, Apr 29, 2011
by Carol Politi
ATT has released a portable cell phone tower that can be set up in disaster scenarios where wireless coverage is not available. This is a great asset for emergency responders and such a network can be used to transmit indoor location information back to incident command.
The TRX Sentrix Personnel Tracking System can inteface to this type of ad hoc cellular network via bluetooth from the Sentrix Tracking Unit to a standard Android handset. Such a configuraiton will allow emergency responders to communicate critical 3D location information - along with other sensor data if needed - back to the command center set up to manage the emergency.
While a standard cellular network can be used in many areas, such connectivity is often not available when responding to disasters. This type of portable communications can be setup in less than 30 minutes, and delivers 1/2 mile of connectivity.