RE: [SLUG] A question of databases

From: wchast@utilpart.com
Date: Thu Apr 08 2004 - 09:01:34 EDT


Maureen wrote:
 
> Would this work with any lats and longs? At our PSAP the cell phone
> companies are listing lats and longs for location of the caller.
> Right now all we get is the location of the tower which does no good
> at all. So far two cell phone companies have completed this and we
> are waiting for the rest to finish. My boss has been looking at
> software where we can enter the lats and longs and get an address or
> even a basic location within about 50 yards or less of the caller.
> Are you doing this for work, a company, or just doing it because you
> can? I have been trying to get the fire department here to go over
> to Linux based CAD and get away from Winblows for all the obvious
> reasons. This might just get them started. Please let me know,
> Maureen

Yes it will. Here is how the set up works right now. We use a Windows
mapper called Maptitude (I am trying to get them to do a Linux ver,
the last communications I had with them I think I sense a possible
look see) and link it to the database. Maptitude will work with all
kinds of formats, and indeed many people purchase it just to use it
as a file translator. What we are doing is AVL or Automatic Vehicle
Location, in your case you are taking it down to the subscriber unit
rather than the vehicle so you can track wherever that subscriber unit
is as long as it can talk to the network.

The company I work for Utility Partners www.utilpart.com does mobile
work force management software, our specialty is utilities but we now
have a product that is so flexible that it could be used in any service
that needs to do mobile data, we are presently selling to not only
utilities but also HVAC, and insurance companies, we are also trying to
get it in front of public safety groups.

The offshoot of the UP product has been to produce a stand alone AVL
product based on the AVL module in the UP product.

Our mobile gateway has a piece that captured the LAT/LON and vehicle
ID data into a separate db, we have extended it to capture also other
data that the vehicle may be sending, such as status data, on doors
panic buttons, coolers etc.
The basic format is
UID | ID | LAT | LON | Speed | Heading | Status1 | Status2 | etc

The UID is a Unique ID that the db generates.

In the radio world we have pushed it into another area. We do drive
testing (Can You Hear me Now? ) of radio systems, just finished a
very large one up in NYC on the Verizon network, we did find places
where " I can not hear you now" Our software captures the LAT/LON data
and all of the radio system environment data we can get out of the
subscriber unit, i.e. signal level, error rate, transmit power, and
a boat load of other parameters that your cell phone can give you if
you know how to tickle it. We also send a message and time the round
trip to find out if both legs of the path are working, the message is
aimed at our gateway which is installed out on the network, it receives
the message logs the TOA and sends it back to the sending unit, send
and receive times are logged on each end, the whole thing is disciplined
with GPS so both ends are on the same time. That way we can see where
the latency is if we have to dig into a slow leg.

Indeed the whole thing is work, but fun work.

In your application, why not just plot the point of data on a map
then you can SEE the location of all of the streets and other things
of interest around the point where the call is coming from. That is
how I would do it. You should already be dumping it into a db, that
is where you keep it for history sake (keep lawyers at bay) the mapper
just links to the db and you use it to see where the device is.

I got a bit long here, but you have entered a area I work in and also
enjoy working with.

Chuck Hast
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To paraphrase my flight instructor;
"the only dumb question is the one you DID NOT ask resulting in my going
out and having to identify your bits and pieces in the midst of torn
and twisted metal."

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