AEROBUREAUTM

HYBRIDIZING  AIRBORNE  REMOTE-SENSING WITH  SATELLITE  NEWS  GATHERING  FOR  GLOBAL  REAL-TIME  NEWS  AND  INFORMATION  DISTRIBUTION

DISASTER ASSESSMENT AND RESCUE FORCE MULTIPLIER

The new millennium offers those agencies concerned with immediate post disaster information gathering and dissemination record challenges.  Larger populations living in ever-more delicate environments, conflicts in remote areas that turn hundreds of thousands of people into refugees overnight, humanitarian rescue situations lying far beyond the reach of coast guards and other civil search activities —- all make new demands on already “max-ed out” resources. 

Fortunately, today there is a unique, hybrid airborne remote sensing/ground truth gathering company that brings to bear a novel combination of mature systems and open architecture.  Borrowing a concept from the modern military of the “force multiplier”-— an activity or system that acts in synergy with existing forces that increases the efficiency or effectiveness of those assets, producing the effect of a much larger and more capable force -- AEROBUREAUTM is such a system. 

AEROBUREAUTM is a revolutionary Information Age system that can rapidly put more and higher-quality information into the hands of rescuers, thus maximizing their efforts during the crucial "Golden Hours" when lives are in the balance.

Designed for the provision of services to governments, non-government organizations, commercial companies, and spot news organizations, AEROBUREAUTM can provide customized remote sensing, disaster assessment and recovery, meteorological, environmental and ice reconnaissance, specialized surveillance, TV sporting and special events, commercial production and teleconferencing. 

AEROBUREAUTM Corporation's solution is "The Amazin' Lady" TM, a vertically integrated airborne television production machine in a Lockheed L-188C airframe which provides all the functions of network news bureau and integrates them with an airborne remote sensing platform. By utilizing mature, off-the-shelf hardware and blending them with the latest low cost/high capability computer, communication and video technologies, AEROBUREAUTM is able to perform heretofore impossible feats of information gathering, production and dissemination in support of disaster assessment and recovery operations, surge news stories or major environmental event coverage.

     "THE AMAZIN' LADY"TM:

                   THE WORLD'S FIRST FLYING THINK TANK

     The AEROBUREAUTM Corporation has integrated its first Lockheed Electra aircraft, AEROBUREAU-1 christened "The Amazin' Lady" TM, with features such as side-looking radar, air-to-ground communications, airborne satellite uplink, multi-function sensors, and reconnaissance drones.  The result is a kind of air-mobile "Think Tank" that can produce network-quality television, radio or written reports while flying more than 4,250 miles at up to 458 miles per hour, land, and initiate information gathering and dissemination operations, autonomously, for at least a week.

Moreover, because she is equipped with an airborne television uplink, she can provide finished video product at long range even while airborne.  Thus, she can fly to the site of a major disaster anywhere in the world in 24 hours, and begin global dissemination of detailed information, day or night, to end-users in real-time.  Moreover, in the disaster assistance mode, she can provide broadband and narrow-band emergency communications systems and/or integrated reports via satellite, and can even provide small-scale local television broadcasts using her UAVs.  There is also a provision for carrying small cellular phone repeaters to erect a local cellular network in a disaster area. 

CURRENT WORLD NEWS MARKET

     The news budgets of the US networks and independent stations exceed $2 billion. Add to this the television news budgets in Europe and Asia and the total is estimated to reach over $4 Billion dollars.

    Cable and Direct Broadcast Satellite systems are creating a demand for even more news coverage, while at the same time creating a need for greater efficiency in the collection and dissemination of news. 

    Network newsgathering is characterized by an operating structure that has not kept up with the technology. Tradition and inertia have kept television news divided along three major lines: News Gathering (journalists); News Operations (broadcast equipment & maintenance); News Administration and Logistics.  Manpower is further diffused by unionization that adds further layers of bureaucratic structure. 

    The result is that networks are far more labor- and manage-ment-intensive than necessary; moreover, technology is not used as a force multiplier: no network has an aviation branch for large scale surge stories, though local stations have used news helicopters for years.

While the technology that enhances the AEROBUREAUTM system is impressive, it is the AEROBUREAUTM Team that makes the system truly effective.  “Team AEROBUREAU”TM is composed of creative and multi-talented individuals with tens of thousands of flight hours and years of experience in the news, information technology and aerospace industries.  Each is a subject matter expert in two or more areas, and has the added discipline gained from years of active and reserve military service.  During a typical mission scenario, each Team member will figuratively wear two or more “hats”.  For example, a primary flight crew member might be called on to provide a live broadcast narrative—based on their unique experience—of a rescue scene or “fuse” the technology-based sensor data with skills honed in actual search and rescue operations.  This means additional breadth and depth on-scene—something no existing non-military activity can provide.

    In addition to global television coverage, AEROBUREAUTM is exploring a "dual use" concept beyond real-time spot news, by using the aircraft in a multiplicity of other functions, such as remote sensing, disaster assessment, assistance, and regeneration, meteorological recon, ice recon, seasonal fisheries patrol, environmental spot recon, environmental surveillance, remote teleconferencing, television sports, special events, and commercials. 

AEROBUREAU-1

    AEROBUREAU-1 is a vertically integrated television news bureau that provides all the functions of network bureau and integrates them with an airborne remote sensing platform.  (Note that the bureau is the smallest journalistic unit capable of independently gathering, evaluating, producing finished news product and coordinating with a network for precise injection into the news flow) 

    By integrating mature, off-the-shelf technologies and blending them with the latest low cost/high capability computer, communications and television technologies, AEROBUREAU is able to perform heretofore impossible information gathering and dissemination feats in support of a panoply of information hungry organizations ranging from governments to commercial companies or non-government or non-profit organizations.

    TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION 

SLAR: The Amazon' Lady carries a modified Motorola AN/APS-94D Side Looking Airborne Radar. After conversion to NTSC standard, the video is digitally manipulated by an off-the-shelf editing system that provides a multiplicity of features ranging from colorization to Moving Target Indication (MTI). 

UAVs: Two Cyclone-class Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are carried for video/communications relay, independent TV recon, over watch, and rebroadcast for news crew updates. Currently ground launched, an advanced air-launch capable model is being explored. The UAVs are wooden and use low-cost subsystems, so a loss is not a major event. The UAVs have an emergency parachute recovery system and finders are rewarded for their return.

VIDEO: The Panasonic S-VHS system was chosen for low cost, weight and volume and low power and cooling requirements.  The system is also rugged and reliable and produces relatively high-quality video. AEROBUREAU doctrine, however, requires an open architecture, and states: "Don't marry the hardware; maximize use while waiting for a generational change, then upgrade."  AEROBUREAU is now evaluating a completely digital system from camera to uplink, but will continue to use the mixed system until HIRF, lightning strike, and other problems stemming from airmobile operations are resolved. 

      The TV suite consists of three complete edit facilities, (each with four monitors, edit controller, sound board and special effects) a director's station, ten aircraft mounted cameras (cockpit port and starboard, cockpit starboard interior two shot, belly down looking, starboard side bubble, upper dome and port bubble and three crew station cameras. Ten portable cameras are carried for ground use. An AAI Pioneer UAV turreted, gyrostabilized FLIR Systems Forward Looking Infrared camera has been adapted for on-board utilization in the belly. 

     COMMUNICATIONS

     AEROBUREAU has multiple, redundant communications systems designed to maintain bureau-quality links anywhere on the planet. She carries dual VHF, UHF, HF, JETPHONES and FM radios. AEROBUREAU is upgrading to a conformal phased array L-Band antenna and transmitter that will allow the aircraft to transmit and receive on two channels at once on INMARSAT dedicated aeronautical channels.  Time, Frequency and Code Division multiplexing are being explored to enhance the system by allowing three or more voice and data streams per channel during point-to-point communications. Using compression technologies the IMARSAT system also provides a backup for transmission of non-real time video. Now being tested are Iridium and Global Star satellite transceivers.

     Supplemental Ground based satcom on L-Band are provided by two Mobile Telesystems Satlight portable satcom systems, which also provide a non-real time video transfer capability. Currently being evaluated is the use of an air-landed, portable mobile subscriber base unit, possibly configured with an aerostat antenna system, which would feed multiple individual cellular phones. In addition, each crewman for internal and external communications is utilizing both Global Star and Iridium satellite transceivers.

    VIDEO TRANSMISSION

    Antenna size required by two-degree beam widths, even in digital modes, mandates a large, high-drag radome that would erode the aircraft's utility.  Moreover, most commercial video satellites are optimized for overland and not over-ocean areas. As an interim fix, AEROBUREAU has negotiated to use a nonstandard space system that provides nearly global airborne broadband linkage while using a small antenna. 

    In an air-landed mode, AEROBUREAU can deploy a standard multi-band uplink trailer, along with a tracking antenna.  The aircraft or UAVs can then fly out about 100 miles and beam a C-Band signal to the tracker, which in turn feeds the uplink for global TV dissemination.

   Dual video transmitters and receivers with omni directional antennas and channel splitters are used by both the mother aircraft and the UAVS to provide a video communications loop for ground deployed AEROBUREAU crews while on operations.