Motorola Solutions Shares Technological Vision for Disaster Response Solutions in Mauritius

In recent years, rapid urbanisation trends have been accompanied by global climate changes and a dramatic increase of natural disasters. As government agencies and first responders strive to provide the best response, it’s clear that technology will play a greater role in building more resilient communities. With that knowledge in mind, Motorola Solutions shared today in the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius its vision for the future of disaster response technologies.

The World Bank reports that on average Mauritius alone experiences over $110 million in combined direct losses from earthquakes, floods and tropical cyclones each year. Around the world, the number of natural disasters has dramatically increased, with three times as many disasters than three decades ago. Public safety agencies around the world know that when disaster strikes, communication is often limited or non-existent, so they must rely on the most resilient and deployable communications solutions.

For the past 90 years, Motorola Solutions has provided customers with robust land mobile radio (LMR) solutions that are built to remain operational during large-scale natural events and provide interoperability between responding agencies. Systems like the company’s Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) serve as nationwide networks across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Broadband and software solutions provide a bigger, clearer picture

Purpose-built public safety LTE solutions of recent years are providing more and more data critical for the understanding of complex situations typical in large-scale natural disasters, allowing better coordination between agencies. Motorola Solutions´ portable LTE infrastructure portfolio enables agencies to quickly deploy a data-rich LTE network virtually anywhere and be broadband ready for natural disasters and improve your disaster recovery capabilities. The systems allow to create ad-hoc, easy to use, private networks, augment existing networks and add new levels of system resiliency, with solutions designed for portable, semi-permanent and fixed installations.

Motorola Solutions envisions a near future where more and more data is fed into Command Center solutions, providing decision makers a wider view of events before, during and after an incident. Historical data will be analysed to help predict which areas can be more susceptible to floods or other incidents, while aggregated live video feeds provide a view of what is happening at various sites. Events and responses built into a timeline will be reviewed after the incident to determine best courses of action in the future.

Make way for augmented reality, drones and data sensors

The abundance of data available from various sources - such as earthquake and flood sensors, weather data and even social media - can clearly provide critical information before, during and after a natural disaster, helping decision-makers make the right call and get the right first responders in on time. However, it’s becoming clear that this abundance of data poses great challenges, namely analysing and presenting the information in a relevant and actionable manner.

With this in mind, Motorola Solutions is investing in companies and technologies that can greatly impact the future of disaster response and management. The company’s latest investment in start-up Edgybees, presents a great opportunity in visualising real-time data for decision makers. Motorola Solutions and Edgybees demonstrate how augmented reality integrated with live drone footage can provide an immersive experience for control room and incident managers.

“Motorola Solutions’ land mobile radio systems are built with multiple layers of resiliency and are trusted by first responders around the world during disasters like tropical storms and floods, when instant communication is essential to help people in life-and-death situations,” said Ronny Preger, director of Sub-Saharan Africa Direct Sales, Motorola Solutions, “As leaders in public safety technology, we are committed to exploring new technology-driven solutions to our customers’ challenges. Smart sensors and data sources, broadband capabilities as well as new technologies like AR and drones can help us deliver rich, real-time intelligence to public safety users during critical moments.”