Defense Contractor Cops to Pursuing Police Work

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Defense Contractor Cops to Pursuing Police Work
From left

Battle-tested technology is marching home, again.

Raytheon Co.’s Public Safety Regional Technology Center in Downey has begun programs with local law enforcement agencies that will bring tools developed for the Defense Department to American streets. One, a mobile app that lets police and firefighters use smartphones and tablets to plan and execute missions, has been deployed to the Downey Police Department as part of a pilot program.

The domestic focus by Raytheon, which employs about 24 people at its year-old public safety center, is part of a broader effort by defense contractors to leverage technologies developed for the military into new profit centers as defense spending declines. The trend has already been seen in the effort to apply such technologies as unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly called drones, to domestic law enforcement efforts.

“What we’re trying to do is capitalize on all the research and development work we’ve done and bridge that over into public safety,” said Daniel De Sollar, director of the technology center.

Raytheon has other projects under way in Los Angeles County. It is installing an in-car laptop computer and networking system in 2,500 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department vehicles and has a mobile device-based communication system being tested by Downey’s police force.

The app being tested in Downey, called One Force Mobile Collaboration, displays and shares digital data that officers and their commanders can use to coordinate with each other. The technology allows first responders to share information in real time with commanders, who can draw lines on maps to show officers an incident perimeter and give directions, such as pinpointing a spot where a helicopter can land. Engineering Director Greg Mikkelsen participated in both programs.

Such real-time visual sharing on devices running on Apple Inc.’s iOS, Google Inc.’s Android and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating systems could prevent miscommunication that puts lives in danger, said Mike Bostic, director of customer advocacy at Raytheon.

“As an incident commander, you’re always completely frustrated when you don’t have live updates,” said Bostic, who after 34 years at the Los Angeles Police Department retired in 2007 as an assistant chief. He joined Raytheon a little more than a year later. “This will give me real live updates of what’s going on in the field.”

The company declined to say what it has invested in the technology transfer effort and would not offer revenue projections for the division. The public safety center is a unit of Raytheon, a big defense and government contractor in Waltham, Mass.

Demand at home

Defense contractors’ attention to domestic markets comes as the development of readily available consumer technology outpaces traditional police radios and as BlackBerry smartphones, long a staple of government communications technology, continue to lose market share. As a result, police and fire agencies have increasingly turned to mobile devices running popular operating systems, and defense companies have stepped into the gap.

“All these companies are going to be looking for related markets,” said Byron Callan, an analyst at Capital Alpha Partners LLC in Washington, D.C., who covers the defense industry.

He said Raytheon is further along in pushing into the public safety market than most other defense companies. The company’s experience developing networks for the Defense Department has helped.

“They’ve put the organizational structure and the team in place to go pursue it,” he said.

Yet efforts to branch out into state and local markets and commercial business have not been universally successful, Callan said. “In the past you saw defense contractors go much further afield in commercial markets that didn’t necessarily work out.”

Raytheon is seeking to address that potential pitfall as it pushes ahead with its technology for state and local agencies by making changes and taking feedback as local departments test the company’s apps.

In a November test, Downey police used the One Force app to assist them as they dealt with California’s prison realignment program.

The state requires parolees to declare a city of residency and notify officials of their addresses. Downey police used the app in a sweep aimed at verifying that parolees registered in the city were who they said they were and living where they were supposed to be. Commanders used the maps to track the 30 officers involved and to share information about the parolees, including photos.

“The key element was that it enabled command post personnel and command teams to check the status and locations of all the units involved,” said Downey Police Capt. Dean Milligan.

The department found that using an iPad during the sweep could be difficult because officers needed to keep their hands free as they visited locations. Based on that feedback, Raytheon is working on ways for officers to wear their app-equipped smartphones, by using arm straps, for example.

Raytheon’s public safety unit plans to expand as it secures new contracts and works on other projects, such as LA-RICS, an in-progress wireless communication system to support 34,000 first responders in Los Angeles and surrounding cities.

“There are a lot of people who want the technology,” Bostic said. “It’s the wave of the future in public safety. It’s about time they get the same support that everyone else gets.”

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