Airbus announced its participation in a Finnish governmental-funded pioneer research program called Priority, launched in August. The two-year program aims to find answers to research questions in the fields of 5G security, artificial intelligence (AI), rural area coverage and quality of service in hybrid networks, improving critical communications and situational awareness for public-safety users.

Interoperability was the theme at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International Emerging Technology Forum in Westminster, Colorado, Oct. 8 – 9. However, APCO officials said interoperability should be achieved with requests for proposals (RFPs) that primarily establish objectives rather than requiring standards.

CommScope agreed to a technology transfer agreement as a result of a settlement with Fractus, a Spanish company that developed antenna technology for use in wireless base station antennas.

Nina Myren is the deputy head of department/specialist adviser strategy at the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection (DSB). She has been involved in the development and introduction of the countrywide critical communications network in Norway, called Nødnett. Today, she works to further develop Nødnett and ensure emergency preparedness through secure and robust public-safety communications and forward-looking technological solutions. Myren was elected to represent DSB on TCCA’s board in June.

The city of Boulder, Colorado, awarded ESChat a contract to provide broadband push-to-talk (PTT) service, including Project 25 (P25) Inter RF Subsystem Interface (ISSI) interoperability with the city’s P25 network. The order includes ESChat servers that will be hosted at the city’s facilities and collocated with the P25 public-safety system.

Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) announced a new funding opportunity, the NIST Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program (PSIAP) First Responder 3D Indoor Tracking (FR3D) Prize. The competition aims to achieve performance of sensors and systems for localization and tracking of first responders operating indoors in a variety of building environments without pre-deployed dedicated infrastructure.

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) TR-8.5 engineering committee on signaling and data transmission issued a call for interest on two documents in the Project 25 (P25) standards suite.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) invited organizations to provide products and technical expertise to support and demonstrate security platforms for securing the industrial internet of things (IIoT) for the energy sector use case. This notice is the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) in collaborating with technology companies to address cybersecurity challenges identified under the energy sector program.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) tested equipment that first responders use to determine the chemical substances on site at a disaster.

JMA Solutions, a federal contractor providing unmanned aerial systems (UAS) professional services, partnered with the DRONERESPONDERS public-safety alliance, a non-profit program created to unite aerial first responders to help learn, train and test with one another.