For Immediate Release
Contact: Byron Parker 240-436-6168, ext. 137
WGS Systems, LLC, a company specializing in communications, signals, imaging, visualization and analytic technologies, has released the latest version of its Mobile Ad Hoc Networking (MANET) collaborative operating environment. Its Tactical Management System (TMS) combines terrestrial mesh radios with native legacy copper, fiber, microwave and satellite communications (SATCOM) infrastructure to provide a highly stable, geographically dispersed network of sensors, analysis and control components that together form a comprehensive view of a region using live video, RF spectrum mapping, asset tracking and various other sensors. This decentralized MANET system has a wide variety of applications including military, disaster relief, major event security, port security and persistent safety monitoring of major metropolitan areas.
“Our customers require immediate-use information without hassle, and it has to be meaningful, in context,” said Bob Wise, President and CEO of WGS. “We have to transcend the hardware, software and transport details for them and provide a coherent, visual environment that allows them to understand, assess, make decisions and direct their teams.”
TMS provides secure communications that survive on and off of the grid: On the grid TMS optimizes performance, pushing many feeds of live video, command and control (C2) and situational awareness information from a multitude of sensors to any number of commanders in the field, in mobile vehicles, in aircraft, in Joint Operations Centers (JOC) and at remote analysis centers. But if something happens to the commercial infrastructure (i.e. cellular and internet service during a crisis), TMS gracefully reverts to its off-the-grid resources that operate in both licensed band and unlicensed band frequencies, able to manage flow of information based on availability of resources.
At the heart of the system are some of the most modern mesh (Silvus Technologies StreamCaster) radios operating in the licensed bands, augmented by a mid-layer of non-licensed band GATEWAY devices that provide mesh WiFi, standard WiFi, and Internet of Things (IoT) LORA communications for long reach to sensors. To further extend the terrestrial network range, TMS Seraphim™ mesh Extender Drones can be launched to strategic network locations.
“The beauty of TMS is that it makes communications transparent and creates one collaborative virtual workspace for all users, with highly reliable connection stability, guaranteed data delivery and data assurance.” Said Wise, “We make MANET operationally effective across diverse physical mediums enabling disparate sensors, systems and platforms to talk and work together.”
Proven in real-life scenarios, TMS is capable of enabling globally-deployed systems that have to survive severe, unpredictable and lengthy drop outs in various portions of command, control and video datalinks. Following its inception in 2007, WGS laid the blue-prints for what would become a many-to-many, link-independent operating environment that is fast and easy to deploy in any environment. After 11+ years of investment and refinement this vision culminated into what became the United States Park Police security system for the 2017 United States Presidential Inauguration. In less than 3 months, WGS deployed TMS to the National Capital Region (NCR), integrating a number of existing cameras of various types, spotter scopes, helicopter-mounted multi-sensor EO/IR sensors, command centers, mobile command posts, tactical vehicles, and remote analysis centers, all able to work coherently with a real-time common operating environment.
This system allows any operator at any location to quickly collect and access information in order to make the best decisions immediately. Operators can see all sensors and all other operators, and using simple point-and-click symbology can control all sensors, hand-off control to each other, keep order with prioritized user accounts, share dispersed database information, chat, speak VoIP, and fully pre-plan, automate and coordinate the activity of numerous sensor systems in an air/ground/mobile/UAS network.
What’s next? Full autonomy, machine learning, enhanced efficiency and more evolving sensor technologies.
About WGS Systems, LLC
WGS Systems, LLC is an award-winning, ISO-9001:2015-certified Maryland, US engineering, products and services company focused on providing optimal situational awareness tools to our protectors by leveraging the latest in signals, imaging, communications, visualization and analytic technologies. WGS INCOSE-certified multi-disciplined engineering team has great depth in hardware, software and system engineering ranging from chip-level up hardware design to full-scale system-of-systems integration. WGS has a portfolio of Intellectual Property that includes antenna and antenna array modeling, circuit, board, box and system hardware designs, signal processing, FPGA, communications protocols, precision radio direction finding and geolocation, advanced visualization, GIS, multi-intelligence databases, sensor automation and precision threat mitigation. WGS envisions this system as the future in device-independent collaborative networks.