Products
Scenarios
Scenario 1: Cut the Red Wire
RealityVision® is being used today in many sensitive applications across the globe. Because of the sensitive nature of these deployments, however, we aren’t at liberty to describe in detail how it is being used. So we’ve written the following fictionalized narrative to illustrate how RealityVision components can work together and to help you visualize how you might apply the system to your situation.
This scenario is drawn in part from real-life usage of the product and was inspired by publicly available information about the threats posed to port facilities, including news accounts of simulated dirty bomb attacks conducted by government authorities at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Vancouver.
Mexico City, Mexico, 8:30 a.m. local time. U.S. Special Agent Jane Black is attending a security conference when her cell phone rings. Her agency is calling and needs her help.
Jane is a leading expert in dirty bombs—conventional explosives packaged with some kind of radioactive material—and her agency has just received frightening news. A major west coast port authority has discovered an unauthorized SUV parked at its facility. The locked vehicle has a large object in the cargo area obscured by a tarpaulin. Bomb-sniffing dogs have detected explosive material. Local authorities have also discovered that the registered owner is a local hospital employee who was reported missing after being suspected of stealing radioactive cesium isotopes from the hospital.
The port is now grappling with a credible dirty bomb threat.
An emergency response team has assembled at the port and many government agencies have engaged remotely. Everyone wants detailed information as soon as possible. A blast of radioactive particles into the environment could expose many individuals to increased cancer risks and shut the port down indefinitely.
Jane is running RealityVision® Mobile on her phone and several dozen of her colleagues at the port and other dispersed locations are running RealityVision on their laptops and phones. Through RealityVision they are all reporting their GPS positions. Back at Jane’s Washington, DC headquarters, Special Agent Alex Brown is running the RealityVision® management console integrated with Microsoft Virtual Earth. This allows him to map everyone’s position and to manage the critical information flows to and from team members.
Fortunately, one of the port surveillance cameras has a view of the SUV, and the port has agreed to make the camera feed available to the agency. The feed will be secured by RealityVision’s out-of-the box encryption and user authentication. Alex uses the RealityVision management console to access the camera feed and superimpose it over publicly available satellite imagery available through Microsoft Virtual Earth.
By exercising a single command on the management console, Alex pushes the live video directly and automatically to Jane and the others. Within seconds, all are viewing the feed live on their devices.
Each recipient can exit the viewer at any time. By using RealityVision’s one-touch commands, any recipient can independently access the camera feed or any other video source being made available within their RealityVision network.
Back at the port, some of Jane’s colleagues are using RealityVision Mobile to stream live video of the scene from their cell phones for remote viewing and access by Jane and others. They also use RealityVision PC on their laptops to transmit more detailed live video of the SUV from telephoto cameras and handheld camcorders.
Jane also starts to receive live video and sensor readings on her cell phone from the remote-controlled bomb detection robot being used at the site. The local team is receiving the robot data on a laptop, and using RealityVision® Screencast™ to stream that information live to Jane and others in real-time. The sensor readings reveal explosive and radioactive material, and she is able to watch as the robot removes the tarpaulin and a metal panel to reveal a wired circuit board. The radioactive material is not visible and the local team looks to Jane for advice in disarming it. In the past, Jane has grappled with the problem of trying to create mental images of remote events based solely on verbal descriptions. Now she has multiple live video feeds available, exact positional information, continuously updating sensor information and a crystal-clear view of the explosive device:
What she sees looks familiar, but she wants to check something first. She calls Alex at headquarters and asks him to retrieve certain archived images they maintain of other bomb configurations. Once he has all the images on his screen, he opens a RealityVision Screencast and moves it across the screen to project each image in turn to her phone until Jane finds the match she is looking for. The entire process takes seconds. Alex projects the matching image to the local team, and they and Jane collectively review all the available information. They reach the same correct conclusion: the robot should cut the red wire.
