Mantaro Networks and Beeper Communications have successfully completed a pilot of Safety Dynamics’ portable SENTRI II gunshot detection units in Houston, TX, to provide additional security, monitor and alert throughout the three-week Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
The show is the world’s largest livestock industry event in the world with roughly 2.4 million visitors in attendance this year and 22,000 event volunteers.
Throughout the show, large daily headline events and concerts were held, and the Safety Dynamics SENTRI II Gun Shot Detection (GSD) system provided additional security and safety support to Houston Police Department, who were able to monitor in real time all show data and video.
(A part of the Houston community for more than 85 years, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™ is dedicated to promoting agriculture by providing a family-friendly live entertainment experience that educates the public, supports Texas youth, and showcases Western heritage. Courtesy of Rodeo Houston and YouTube)
The pilot also included additional vendors, integrators and carriers for the city to evaluate multiple systems for larger city deployments upon conclusion of the rodeo.
SENTRI II is a next generation of gunshot detection systems.
The deployment marks another milestone in the advancement of this proven public safety technology by allowing the stand-alone gunshot detection systems to be completely portable using Beeper’s advanced wireless SD WAN Cellular Bonding solution, the IE 5000 Multi-WAN Channel Bonder.
Safety Dynamics is an industry pioneer specializing in gunshot detection, camera and acoustic surveillance and other analytical sensory technology and warning systems.
The SENTRI solution uses patented acoustic algorithms identifying the precise location with plus/minus ONE degree of accuracy.
Alert and notification are delivered directly to the user within less than ONE second of an event.
The system immediately geo-locates the event and will plot it on a map, which can be integrated with the user’s command center or Network Operations Center (NOC).
“The addition of the SENTRI II portable version of Safety Dynamics’ advanced acoustic surveillance analytical sensory technology with Beeper’s communications solution will enable further efficacy and strategic use of the systems for citywide deployments and special events like the Houston Livestock & Rodeo show,” said Sally Fernandez, president & CEO, Safety Dynamics Inc.
“We were able to quickly deploy for this ‘one-off’ event – the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo – which occurs annually.”
(Safety Dynamics SENTRI system is an advanced gunshot detection system that virtually eliminates all false alarms and zeros the camera sensor immediately on the shooter. Now available with built in facial recognition, the system offers law enforcement and military users a powerful tool to make arrests in gun crimes. Courtesy of SDBPARTNERSVIDEO and YouTube)
Now that the event is over, the police department can continue to leverage the technology and move it to the next desired location in a matter of hours.
Other solutions are typically fixed, requiring much longer setup and calibration times as well as pre-existing network connections, such as costly fiber or coax.
“The speed and ease of installation of the SENTRI II system are impressive,” stated Sgt. James Turner, Houston Police Department.
“Basically, it was out of the box and on location. We were up and running and connected to existing infrastructure in a matter of hours. Other solutions can be problematic, requiring many man-hours to deploy.”
The IE 5000 SD WAN Cellular Bonder is a Comprehensive Communications Device (CCD,) delivering high-capacity wireless broadband connectivity.
It essentially provides a “network in a box” that actively and dynamically analyzes and profiles existing cellular (3G, 4G, LTE and so on) networks for capacity and availability.
It identifies the four most available channels (regardless of frequency,) aggregates that capacity, then bonds the four channels into one high-capacity Virtual Private Network (VPN) which is securely managed by the user.
The system is fully backwards-compatible, frequency/device agnostic and ideal for the transmission of low-latency (less than one-half second), analog and digital, real-time data and video from the field to the command center anywhere in the world.
The system provides un-tethered mobility in the most challenging environments.
Additionally, by integrating the SD WAN Cellular Bonder with SENTRI, the system is now highly scalable, as multiple feeds for acoustic, data and video can be daisy-chained through the Bonder, leveraging other existing PD assets.
“There is a clear and rapidly growing need for GSD and advanced surveillance and analytic solutions as many major cities continue to experience gun violence on an epidemic scale,” added Fernandez.
“The flexibility that the portable SENTRI II provides is unprecedented in the industry. Competitive solutions can be prohibitively expensive and can require months of tests and validation, which adds to expense and can strain municipal budgets.”
