Western Australia Police is to acquire an aviation-based full motion video downlink and networking system to better improve the situational awareness of the police on the ground during operations.
The system will provide real-time or near-real-time aerial sensor vision to Police and related government agencies to improve the safety and efficiency of frontline policing and the effectiveness of inter-agency emergency management.
The video system will be installed into WA Police’s forthcoming NPH1 helicopter, its existing BK117 helicopter and WA Police’s existing PC12 plane.
Crew in these aircraft will use an onboard video management system to collect and direct video footage and then send it to over an encrypted connection to WA Police secure facilities.
These aircraft are currently used by WA Police in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and patrolling work, as well as to support search and rescue, and disaster relief missions.
Connectivity to the aircraft is provided by airborne line-of-sight variable frequency microwave downlinks.
In the case of a failure of these downlinks, existing mobile phone communications infrastructure or broadband satellite communications services, or a combination of both, could be used.
According to WA Police, the availability of real-time video imagery to both on-the-ground police and off-site police management could dramatically assist in managing incidents.
“Timely and economical police job despatch and the effective execution of operations rely on very good situational awareness,” WA Police documents on the initiative read. “Responding police and other emergency services can better deal with situations when afforded the improved situational awareness offered by real-time video imagery of an offence underway or an incident site.”
“In other cases, the effectiveness of emergency response and often the outcome of an emergency depend heavily on well-informed decision-making at the higher level. In some cases real time imagery and [full motion video] needs to be transmitted to executive decision-makers or subject matter experts for immediate interpretation to provide timely advice to incident site commanders and other state response agencies.”