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Situational Awareness

January 4, 2016

Combating Normalcy Bias through Training and Technology

by Michael Helfrich
in autonomous agents, BlueBeacon, Distributed Sensing, Emergency Notification, IoT, Lone Worker, Occupational Safety, Recovery, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

The beauty of being human is that most of us live our lives believing the best in others and that life will be normal and predictive. We expect that things are always orderly and too often, that events that suddenly break the mold of normalcy, aren't as bad as we might want to consider. Our brain is predisposed to assume that things will carry on...

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December 12, 2015

NYPD Transit Bureau Blazes the Path with Multi-Sensor Fusion using Blueforce with Working Dogs and Bomb Detection Teams

by Michael Helfrich
in autonomous agents, CBRN, Distributed Sensing, Fusion, K9, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Surveillance, Uncategorized, Wearables

The intelligence community has been warning for some time about “home made” explosive and chemical weapons, many of which can be fashioned from materials bought at Home Depot or the local pool supply store. Fast forward to Saturday March 14, 2015 when leaders in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq provided the Reuters news organization with soil and clothing samples taken by the peshmerga from...

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October 12, 2015

AUSA 2015 Washington: SCOTT Patriot 5510 and Blueforce Tactical on Display for Advanced CBRN Mitigation and Defeat

by Michael Helfrich
in CBRN, Distributed Sensing, Hybrid Life Support, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

Nothing is more frightening than asymmetric threats that involve the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents by non-nation state actors. Deployed tactical teams are increasingly being exposed to CBRN threats, including terrorist attacks with non-conventional means and where threats involve large quantities of toxic industrial chemicals, all posing severe hazards to deployed forces. A lack of warning and reaction time is a...

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September 25, 2015

CBRNE Sensing Platforms: Human, Animal, and Autonomous

by Michael Helfrich
in Distributed Sensing, Emergency Notification, Fusion, Hybrid Life Support, K9, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Surveillance, Uncategorized

Blueforce DC METRO Field Day is quickly approaching. No Powerpoint. No lectures. Just a day of "hands-on" with leading-edge emergency management, first responder, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism technologies. The event is sponsored by Blueforce Development, Tech Data, Sprint, and Mac Business Solutions. "Track 2" will feature “Sensing Platforms for WMD/CBRNE” and will demonstrate the latest in technology for mobile curtains of WMD sensing plus shared...

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September 12, 2015

Assured Disaster Communications: Blueforce TACPAC for Disaster Response

by Michael Helfrich
in Emergency Notification, Fusion, Recovery, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

You know it's bad when you are driving south against a 120-mile rolling backup of vehicles which are headed north.  There are fights at the gas stations.  When Blueforce was asked to pre-deploy with our emergency communications gear to Jefferson Parish in the hours before Hurricane Gustav was to come ashore, we beat the storm by a mere 60 minutes and bunked at a courthouse...

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September 9, 2015

Blueforce Field Day: DC Metro, 14 October 2015

by Michael Helfrich
in BlueBeacon, Distributed Sensing, Hybrid Life Support, Lone Worker, Occupational Safety, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

With a stated challenge by government officials in shortening what is known as the sensor-to-shooter cycle - the amount of time it takes from when a hostile threat is detected by a sensor - either human or electronic - and when it is attacked, Blueforce Tactical and emerging sensing platforms deliver a closed loop and rapidly adaptable hardware/software platform for real-time sensing leveraging already deployed...

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