MOTOROLA’S HIGH-TECH PROJECTS FOR POLICE
Smart belts, drones among gear you’ll see on streets in not-so-distant future
The company that helped bring law enforcement the walkie-talkie is trying to reposition itself as the leader in the next generation of high-tech police gadgetry.
After decades of building its reputation by kitting out cops and firefighters with communications gear, Motorola Solutions has become increasingly aggressive in its push to reinvent the company to meet growing law enforcement demand for intelligence and data-gathering tools.
The future could include smart belts that notify dispatchers anytime a cop pulls a gun from a holster; drones that allow emergency responders to quickly get a birdseye view of a catastrophe; and real-time intelligence consoles that allow police departments to quickly aggregate data and predict where crime may occur the next day, according to executives at the company’s innovation center outside of Chicago.
Motorola received an endorsement toward its mission when the tech-specializing private equity firm Silver Lake announced this week it will take a $1 billion stake in the company.
The company has made a series of moves in recent months — including forming partnerships with Skyscape Cloud Services and software company Wynyard, as well as acquiring crime analysis firm PublicEngines — as it tries to accelerate the transition.
During a recent tour of its innovation center in Schaumburg, Ill., Motorola executives showed USA TODAY some of the gadgets it hopes to get into the marketplace soon.
CONNECTED POLICE OFFICER Motorola’s new gadgets include a “smart belt” that would relay a message to dispatch regarding an officer’s location within moments of pulling a gun out of his or her holster, or detaching handcuffs or a Taser from the smart belt.
The officer might also be wearing smart glasses. Each pair, which Motorola recently began field-testing along with the belt, is fitted with a tiny camera that allows the officer to transmit the images back to dispatchers. It would also take a photo of what the officer is looking at and send it to police headquarters. Dispatchers can also send the officer text messages that would display on the lenses.
“Now the officer ... doesn’t have to take his eyes from the scene,” said Randy Ekl, director of advanced systems technology. “It also brings intelligence back to other people (in the department), giving them more real-time information. It’s an improvement in terms of the safety of an officer and the understanding of a situation as a whole.”
Ekl said officers have suggested that they include an override button, because sensitive equipment gets pulled off cops’ belts frequently for innocuous reasons. EYES IN THE SKY Motorola announced in May that it was partnering with drone manufacturer CyPhy Works, a leading developer of tethered drones, or drones that use a “microfilament tether,” allowing them to be powered through a generator or another power source on the ground and so can stay in the air indefinitely.
“We think it makes it much more useful for our first responders because ... it can just go up and stay on station and provide valuable information,” said Bruce Mueller, Motorola Solutions’ director of wireless research.
Motorola hasn’t yet set a price but has demonstrated it for some departments, said Mueller, who expects a “small number” of departments could be flying the drones — assuming the Federal Aviation Administration approves — later this year. REAL-TIME INTELLIGENCE For the past two years, Motorola has been marketing a “real-time intelligence console,” which gives public-safety agencies the ability to quickly aggregate various data — including footage from public and privately-owned cameras — that can help police quickly react to a crime in progress and assist them in predicting areas that could be the next day’s hot spot.
In a demonstration of the technology, Motorola officials mocked up a scenario in which a police department was quickly able to view private surveillance video of an armed robbery at a pawn shop, video of the suspect driving away in a white car and footage from a publicly owned camera of a busy roadway used in the getaway.
Motorola said it has sold the console — which is customized to a department’s needs — to a few agencies thus far.
In Elgin, Ill., which paid about $160,000 for the real-time intelligence console last year, police department officials said their console gets feeds from several city-owned cameras in public areas and one privately-owned camera belonging to a convenience store. The store owner gave police permission for access to the camera.