NextGen Incident Response Communication System

Global warming continues to set unwelcome records: 2023 was the earth’s hottest year in over a century and a half; January 2024 is the hottest January on record; Decade after decade since the 1960s has seen a steady increase in average temperatures. From coastal flooding to prolonged heat waves, global warming has caused the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events to increase. This includes wildfires, which have grown significantly in scale and duration. The World Resources Institute estimates that forest fires are burning twice the amount of tree cover today as they were 20 years ago. The grim reality is that in the face of global warming there is a dire need to invest more in wildland firefighting capabilities to protect and safeguard the American public and its property. One monumental need facing today’s firefighting operations is the lack of a reliable, resilient, and secure data communications system to enable quick information dissemination and support effective decision making. The proposed innovation – the NextGen Incident Response Communication System (NIRCS) – is a mobile, long-range, multi-purpose NextGen broadcast communications system. The innovation directly addresses the cited need: providing a reliable, resilient, and secure data communications system for quick data dissemination. NIRCS makes use of ATSC 3.0 technology, a digital terrestrial broadcast system built on the internet protocol (IP) that enables one-way communication of any IP-compatible data, including ultra-high-definition video, high-fidelity audio, and other types of data packets (e.g., encrypted UTM or UAM messages). As a multi-content-compatible general communication system, NIRCS can fulfill several important use cases, to include the broadcast of vehicle position and operational volume data, temporary flight restrictions (TFRs), Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs), weather information, UAS surveillance video, and high-fidelity audio.

The proposed innovation has an untold number of NASA applications as it is a general, non-specific communication system that can be used for multiple purposes. For example, NASA’s Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project will find NIRCS useful for the long-range broadcast of UAS position and UAS operational volume data to crewed aircraft cooperating in wildland firefighting air operations. NASA’s Air Mobility Pathfinders (AMP) project will find NIRCS useful for the broadcast of vehicle telemetry data to support the high-rate, high-bandwidth vehicle-to-vehicle requirements of UAM operations. The primary catalyst behind the innovation is to support the management of wildfire airspace operations. Thus, the primary non-NASA application is wildland fire management conducted by federal (e.g., USDA’s Forest Service, BLM, and NPS) and state organizations (e.g., Cal Fire). However, NIRCS can also fulfill a variety of other purposes, like supporting other incident responses (e.g., FEMA disaster responses).

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