Guest Editorial by Luke Reeves, Content Creator at FLYMOTION

As a veteran-owned end-to-end advanced technology solution provider, our team of veterans and former first responders at FLYMOTION aren’t afraid to push technology’s limits. We work with public safety, government, defense, security, and enterprise organizations to help them use unmanned systems, from drones to ground robotics, to enhance their situational awareness and streamline operations.

The level of insight these drones and robots offer is critical, as emergency responders can send these solutions to survey an area that may be unsafe for humans.

For instance, flying a drone over a wildfire could help responders better understand how the fire spreads and where to send reinforcements. However, these insights are only useful if responders can easily access this information wherever they happen to be.

When we found we needed to provide customers with reliable and customizable communication devices that let them view drone and robotic feeds, we turned to Panasonic Connect for their TOUGHBOOK laptops and tablets, given their durability and reliable connectivity.

Our success with TOUGHBOOK solutions encouraged us to work again with Panasonic Connect for a presentation tool that would help strengthen our customer training.

We got a solution that not only supported our classrooms and conference rooms – but also solved a prevalent challenge for our mission-critical customers on the front lines.

(As an end-to-end technology integrator, FLYMOTION prides itself on providing complete, custom solutions for its clients. Using Panasonic Connects PressIT Wireless Presentation System, the veteran-owned company can easily operate and send multiple inputs to screens, providing efficient, real-time communication and collaboration. Courtesy of Panasonic Connect North America and YouTube.)

Enhanced Customer Trainings  

For customers to understand how unmanned systems can support their daily workflows, they need to see these solutions in action. That’s why we run simulations demonstrating exactly how the drones and robots work in mission-critical scenarios. These scenarios range from conducting crowd control to responding to a building fire.

However, before these test runs occur, our customers must understand the basics of drone and robotic set-up and maintenance. Therefore, we always begin our training sessions in the classroom.

We recently tripled our physical footprint to incorporate more classrooms and meeting spaces for customer collaboration so we can help them find the right tools and train them in these new solutions. With this extra space, we knew we needed to invest in a platform that would allow us to easily share visual content to make our presentations and training sessions more engaging and effective.

We decided to deploy Panasonic’s PressIT Wireless Presentation System for its ease of use. The system’s design eliminates the need for cables. It facilitates simple content sharing between different laptops when we run training, allowing us to share images on the large monitors in our classrooms.

With the multi-viewer function, presenters can split the screen to show two different images, such as drone and robotic feeds, and distribute those images to the laptops of different first responders. If these first responders want to share content from their devices on the training room monitors, they can quickly connect them to PressIT.

PressIT has helped us streamline these presentation workflows and made our class sessions more engaging and interactive.

Transferring PressIT to the Front Lines

Our team at FLYMOTION is constantly looking for new and innovative use cases for our existing technology. Soon after we deployed PressIT in our classrooms and conference rooms, we quickly discovered a way it could help us with a challenge our customers were facing on the front lines.

While our drones and robots collect a tremendous amount of data to support first responders’ situational awareness, it can be challenging to transmit those insights to everyone on the ground supporting the operation.

Multiple response team members would often have to crowd around one person’s TOUGHBOOK to view the drone feed. This becomes even more challenging when multiple drones and body cameras collect footage, inhibiting collaboration overall.

While the drones have a USB input, running cords between the drone and a monitor can hinder mobility. This poses another barrier as drone operators legally need to maintain their line of sight with the drones. Our team knew we needed a presentation system that was truly wireless and supported near-real-time transmission with minimal latency. However, solutions on the market were costly and wouldn’t work with limited internet connectivity — which is often the case in rural areas.

After seeing how easy it was to operate the PressIT system in our classrooms and collaboration rooms, we tested it on our drones and robots. We discovered we could easily send multiple high-quality video feeds to various screens, including our TOUGHBOOK laptops and tablets in the field and our command center vehicles. PressIT allowed us to create a short-range communication network.

(Learn more about FLYMOTION, a veteran-owned industry leader providing end-to-end technology solutions, system integration, world-class training, and support. Courtesy of FLYMOTION and YouTube.)

The ability to wirelessly stream HD video gives our responders a significant advantage. The multi-viewer capability is helpful as we often need to share footage from multiple drone feeds. We also built our own mount systems for a variety of drone controllers to easily insert PressIT into the controller.

The results blew away our clients and our response teams. Now, responders can view the same footage and strategize in real-time. We include PressIT in the drone field kits we send to our teams and clients to support emergency response efforts. This allows them to wirelessly stream any footage from the controller onto their TOUGHBOOK devices.

As innovators, our experimentation continues: we’re currently running tests to see how far the video transmission can go with PressIT — including through walls and concrete.

We’re excited to see what the future holds for how the PressIT Wireless Presentation System and TOUGHBOOK devices will continue to help us and our customers achieve more efficient and collaborative emergency response.

About the Author

Luke Reeves is a Content Creator on FLYMOTION’s marketing team.

Through his work at FLYMOTION, he aims to drive awareness and understanding of how unmanned systems can be leveraged to save lives, protect communities, and safeguard our nation.

FLYMOTION subject matter experts bring decades of military and public safety operational experience to professionals across Public Safety, Government, Defense, Security, and Enterprise globally. The company’s ‘Supporting Those Who Serve’ mission resides at the core of their staff to consistently deliver the highest level of client satisfaction.

 

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