EULER – Technology Highlights for End Users

Euler Goals

The European Commission and the member states of European Union have recognized the importance of providing the needed enablers for Public Protection Disaster Relief (PPDR) to ensure justice, security and protection. The protection to be ensured by the PPDR primarily covers people but also the environment and property, and it addresses a large number of threats both natural and man-made, acts of terrorism, technological, radiological or environmental accidents, occurring inside or outside the EU.

In Europe, a major PPDR operational requirement is support for effective cross-border cooperation, which requires adequate communication capabilities including interoperable radio communication systems in border areas and between operational services from different Member States. Difficulties in the use of radio communications in border areas are usually caused by the lack of interoperable interfaces between current systems, which prohibits effective roaming.

In Europe, a variety of wireless communication systems are used by Border Security organizations including TETRA, TETRAPOL, Analog Professional Mobile Radio and even commercial systems like GSM and GPRS. As a consequence, public safety responders in the field may not be able to effectively coordinate their efforts for the resolution of the crisis. Joint military and public safety operational scenarios are particularly important as they are usually related to wide crossborder natural disasters where lack of coordination may have huge impact for loss of lives and assets. It is therefore important to identify technology enablers to eliminate or mitigate the interoperability barriers.

Another important challenge for PPDR organizations is the lack of broadband connectivity. A considerable number of new PPDR applications require the transmission and distribution of images and video among field responders and to the remote offices. An increased data usage, especially for mission critical communications, will have a significant effect on the frequency need and justifies requirements for additional spectrum. Finally, security is a critical requirement during joint emergency operations between different services, such as Governmental Forces (e.g. Police, Military, Fire Brigade), Non-Governmental Organizations or other emergency services. Security is needed to avoid possible communication attacks which could endanger the lives of both Public Safety officers and the people they support and protect.

Euler will define and demonstrate the benefits of SDR (Software Defined Radio) in enhancing interoperability and fast deployment in joint emergency service operations. SDR architecture standard based upon the SCA (Software Communication Architecture) concept will be followed. Moreover, Euler will specify, design and develop a reference security platform including high data rate waveform for security applications. Waveform software defines the services, communication protocols, interfaces, algorithms, security features, spectrum use, etc. to be implemented on SDR. Eventually Euler will contribute to the further development of SDR architecture standard to fully support decomposition of waveforms and components to the GPPs, DSPs and FPGAs by providing an illustrative case of waveform portability.

The Euler-project will shape and clarify the European vision for interoperability in joint emergency and security services in close cooperation with E.U. stakeholders in the field of security forces management. In this context, the Euler network and nodes will be based on SDR technology porting a WF implementing the 802.16 standard (WiMAX), to leverage the interoperability and security provided by the communication systems.

EULER Facts

Euler is funded by FP7 security initiative of the European Commission.

  • Activity 4 : Restoring security and safety in case of crisis
  • Topic 4.2.4 : Wireless communication for E.U crisis management
  • Conducting the proposal: THALES France
  • Duration: 3 years, Starting date 01/03/2009

The consortium carrying out the EULER project is made up of major industrial partners and leading academic research institutes and supported by a group of European representatives from end-user organizations. Euler will demonstrate how the benefits of SDR can be leveraged in order to enhance interoperability and fast deployment in joint crisis management and rescue work.

Background - SDR technology

The Software Defined Radio (SDR) concept is generally viewed as a revolution in radio technology. This is because it heralds a new era in wireless technology, where the bounds of a radio signal need not necessarily be constrained to the particular platform for which the radio signal was conceived.

In former decades, the designed radio signal belonged to that particular radio platform. As the science of wireless technology evolves, so does the capacity of a platform, and therefore the resulting radio signal; e.g. new applications from voice, to images, to video. A hardware radio (HR), which we may use as the term to refer to radios of the former generation, would need to be disposed, and new radios purchased, to make use of new developments to radio technology. Using an SDR is one method to break this cycle; that is, to be able to reuse a particular radio technology with a new radio signal. A radio signal, as we refer to here, could also be called a waveform; containing a range of technical features including transmission power, frequency band and signal modulation, to name three attributes.

This type of flexibility offers many advantages; it provides an interoperability point for connecting HRs by the SDR changing its signals to fit in to the local wireless environment. The military world has developed the SDR technology to allow a seamless integration of different radio environments corresponding to differing communities of interest. A similar challenge exists for the public safety world – here SDR is ready placed to link together the different wireless environments.

The image to the right shows this very flexibility: a user selects a waveform, the software configures the platform, which is then delivered for transmission. In the Public Safety Environment, this flexibility can be used to rapidly connect disparate radio networks, which in turn provides effective coalition response. This capability of dynamic changes on the fly promises new types of agility and international cooperation where the problem of linking different wireless systems is significantly reduced.

The liberation provided by SDR technology opens up a potential new technology, known as Cognitive Radio (CR), whereby there is now a possibility that wireless devices, could move into new bands, where radio congestion is observed – another essential need of a Public Safety – providing availability. Effective use of SDR therefore provides new capability to the Public Safety world for saving lives.

New capabilities with SDR

Operational requirement Required capabilities provided by SDR based platforms
Joint Operations with different agencies (possibly from different Countries) Interoperability
Public safety organizations operate in unpredictable conditions also from the point of view of spectrum availability (interferences) Flexible Spectrum Management
Public safety operations are usually unplanned and communications infrastructures may not be available Reconfigurability
Public Safety operators may not have the interoperable terminals with the wireless networks existing in the emergency area. Backward compatibility with legacy equipment
Evolving Technologies and standards may cause the existing wireless equipment to become obsolete
Limited budget for infrastructure/quipment upgrade
Software upgrade vs. hardware upgrade
Different levels of security among agencies Support for multilevel security

Mobile broadband for PSC

Public Safety communications are historically based on voice with guaranteed requirements on call set-up, resilience and security. In recent years, Public Safety responders have been increasingly dependent on data communication to support a number of new applications. The following list provides some examples:

  • Verification of biometric data. Public Safety officers may check the biometric data of potential criminals (e.g. fingerprints) during their patrolling duty.
  • Wireless video surveillance and remote monitoring. A sensor captures data in video-streaming format, which is then collected and distributed to public safety responders and command & control centers.
  • Automatic number plate recognition. A camera captures license plates and transmits to headquarters for the plate data to verify that the vehicles have not been stolen or the owner is a crime offender.
  • Documents scan. Patrolling or border security operations, public safety officers can verify a document like a driving license efficiently.
  • Database checks. All the activities where public safety officers must retrieve data from the headquarters to support their work.
  • Transmission of Building/Floor plans. Building or floor plans can be requested to the headquarters and transmitted to the public safety responders.
  • Monitoring of vital signs of Public Safety officers. This is particularly important for firefighters and officers involved in dangerous operations (e.g. search & rescue during a fire).
  • Remote emergency medical services. Through transmission of video and data, medical personnel may intervene or support the team in the field for an emergency patient.
  • Collect and share. This applies particularly to the common situation picture among Public Safety responders of various organizations.
  • Access to images. This applies particularly to aerial photographs, satellite images & maps.

Euler will propose a new waveform, The EWF (Euler WaveForm) which will primarily support a high data rate backbone network interconnecting separate wireless systems. Operational requirements for the novel waveform are obtained from a dedicated group of end-users involved directly with the project. EWF will be based on WiMAX (802.16e) standard. EWF will support operation both in licensed and unlicensed bands in order to increase the available operational spectrum.

Security and interoperability

Public safety domain implies severe security requirements, that are underlined and recalled in each task of project Euler's work breakdown structure. Eulerproposes an approach fully compliant to the five principles of security :

  • Confidentiality,
  • Integrity,
  • Authentication,
  • Availability, and
  • Non-repudiation.

Security enforcement is constrained by the information sensitivity level, the related security clearance owned by each involved user has and the specific operational context. Natural disasters require the support of military forces for their logistic and technology capabilities beyond the participation of nonmilitary forces like Civil Protection and Fire Department. The need of interoperability between military and non-military forces increases within crisis situation caused by terrorist attacks and the necessary countermeasures that have to be established. In this case, citizens security and, generally, national security, could require systems able to perform Transmission Security (TRANSEC) and Communication Security (COMSEC, e.g. crypto).

A wider-scale vision of interoperability has to consider all the aspects concerning security and to define specific security profiles for specific operations. In addition, security services have to be available during an emergency together with the network infrastructure. Hence, crisis operation environment shows a situation where main security services have to be integrated with RAN’s components provided by SDRs and the correspondent subsystems hosting AAA:

  • A = Authentication: the service to ensure that the communication entity is the one that it claims to be.
  • A = Authorization: function determines whether a particular entity is authorized to perform a given activity.
  • A = Availability: that the wireless communication resources are available and usable by authorized users.

There are possibly two meanings to triple A; from the Commercial Operators perspective, the AAA nomenclature would have the third A to represent Accounting; which refers to the tracking of the consumption of network resources. However, for the purposes of the public safety/military world, the aspect of provisioning Availability which is of greater importance.

Euler gives responses in a very difficult scenario including a joint military and public safety. Security Policies are addressed from the point of view of international cooperation and military-PS users. This subject is also addressed by the ETSI TC-RRS WG4 (Public Safety), with which Euler has established a close cooperation, aiming for standardized security procedures in joint operations.