Emergency Management Communications Interoperability: Thinking Outside the Ellipsoid

I think the term “thinking outside the box” needs to be modernized so I’m going to use the term “thinking outside ellipsoid”, just to mix it up a bit.

Here’s some thinking outside the ellipsoid for 2025.

A little while back I deployed into an EOC to do some advance planning for a few days on a multi-agency response to an emergency event. And guess what? I saw the same thing happening on that event that I saw back in the late 80’s when I first got into the emergency management game. It’s the same thing I’ve seen on just about every multi-agency response and recovery event since then. And it’s the same thing that has come up repeatedly on pretty much every after-action review that I have facilitated or participated in over the years.?

Unfortunately, it probably comes as no surprise to anyone reading this article that what I saw was that interoperable communications between all the assisting and supporting agencies is still a challenge. Everyone shows up with their own internal comms tools and practices, and they do their thing. And they do it well. On this event there were attempts made by the EOC to mitigate that challenge a bit. One day, the local volunteer fire department lent out all of their extra handheld radios but we soon realized that there wasn’t enough to go around. The next day, we brought in a bunch more radios from an assisting local government, but again it wasn’t enough to go around. At one point the planning section was tracking over 30 different parties associated with this event, several of which were engaged in site operations and most of which had their own internal comms.

We had local ground search and rescue volunteers, a heavy urban search and rescue crew, police, fire, other local governments, public works, utilities and government agencies, heavy equipment operators, site security, helicopters, drone operators and a few others. All had their own internal comms tools and practices. The incident command post did a really good job of mandating that all of the agencies check in and out of the site through them, so the accountability piece was in place. But not all the radios had a common frequency so that there was robust communications on the entire incident. And that has been a challenge in emergency response and recovery for a very long time. This is not just a local problem. It's bigger than that.

There have been some attempts to solve that. I think we are all aware of past attempts at narrow banding radio frequencies, which is really all about trying to stuff more frequencies within an existing range. I remember my early wildfire days when we made the leap from 2 simplex radio channels to use for tactical operations on large fires to add a third channel. That was a a big deal back then, and extremely operationally useful. Now it looks like they have about 12 or so simplex frequencies. And they’re putting tones on top of existing duplex/repeater frequencies to try to stretch them out even further. Or how about the 700 MHz public safety expansion a few years ago. It was also an attempt to create more capability around multi-agency communications. And in the broader scheme of things, everyone seems to be pursuing that ideal common operating picture (COP) model as well. All because that need for shared information for situational awareness and good interagency communications is still a challenge.

So, here’s where the thinking outside the ellipsoid thing comes in. I think there is another way. I’m going to do a bit of a brain dump here so try to follow.

This article is about a specific company and how I think they are on the brink of becoming a disruptor, in a good way. I’ve written about them before and will probably continue to do so in the future because I think where they are is where emergency management communications needs to be, and by all accounts seems to be heading.

Recall back on September 5, 2024, I wrote an article called “Innovation: If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail...” It was in some respects a subtle jab at what I think is the lack of willingness to try new innovative things in some aspects of wildfire response and management. Don’t get me wrong. I think there is a lot of good innovation happening in the wildfire domain, but I also think there’s room for more.

And then there was another article I wrote on September 30, 2024 called “Wildfire 3.0 Maybe? Doing Things A Different Way Maybe?”? Again, a polite jab on the need to embrace innovation.

In both articles I referenced a company called VEXSL. I think that that they can be a game changer. (I know some people don’t like the term game changer, but suck it up buttercup. It’s the term I’m using to describe what this company is doing).? Full disclosure here. I don’t work for the company. I have never received any money from them. I do talk to them from time to time to share or get clarification on my thoughts about some things. I just think that we need to be paying more attention to what they do.

I was introduced to VEXSL in Spring 2024 by a mutual friend. Because I am both blessed and cursed with some pretty strong systems thinking, and because I like strategic foresight, I immediately saw how VEXSL’s tool Disasterfield was something that has been missing in the broader emergency response and recovery domain. I will make it very clear right now that I don’t fully understand the technical intricacies of what they offer, but I can see how it can all fit together to bring solution to a very significant and long standing challenge. And that challenge, of course, is the one of robust and reliable interoperable communications during multi-agency emergency events. So, here’s some thoughts on what I think VEXSL can bring to the table.?

VEXSL is owned and operated by military veterans, some of whom have worked in special operations in some of the most austere and challenging environments for communications anywhere on the planet. Through that they have been introduced to some of the leading edge communications technologies over the years. And when you think about it, that’s not so unusual for a technology to be developed and proven in a military environment and then have it migrate into the civilian world. Remember GPS? It started out in the military and has evolved to a point where just about everything on the internet of absolutely everything has GPS technology in it. Your mobile devices pretty much all have it. Your cars and trucks pretty much all have it. Everytime you do a web search for some location or service you're using it.

So, it should come as no surprise to you that another piece of technology has found its way from the military to civilian world. And the VEXSL folks are poised to bring it to a multi-agency emergency event near you. They have married up a group of technologies to create a solutions to a number of challenges, not the least of which is this multi-agency communications interoperability thingy. This is where I really need you to think outside the ellipsoid and connect a few of your own dots.

VEXSL’s Disasterfield tool is part communications, part integrated data collection, part COP, and part AI enabled decision support. The event I deployed to recently at one point had over 30 different assisting and supporting agencies involved, and like I mentioned earlier in this article they all had their own internal comms tools and practices. For sure I observed some communications breakdowns. But what if all of those agencies were able to show up with their own radios and be able to talk to each other? As I understand it, VEXSL’s Disasterfield can enable that through a combination of radio over internet protocol (ROIP) on a team awareness kit (TAK) infrastructure, with a self- healing mesh network. So, what does that all mean? Here’s what I think it means for emergency management.

ROIP is a proven technology that allows newer two way radios to talk to each other over the internet. But wait a minute, what if there’s no connectivity in remote areas? What if you can’t get a cell signal? That’s where the idea of the self-healing mesh network comes in. Radios on a self-healing mesh network will search out the closest radio and basically leapfrog on its signal to get through to where the user is trying to get to. That mesh can include any combination of personal radios, vehicle mounted communications systems, aircraft communications systems, cellular networks, satellite communications systems, or terrestrial based systems.

And what is an absolute bonus to all of this is what the TAK technology brings to the table. So far, we’ve been talking about voice based communications, but TAK enables data collection for enhanced situational awareness from just about any type of sensor (drone based imagery & infra-red, wearables for monitoring the health & location of workers, networked weather stations, streaming from closed circuit TVs etc.). Think about the implications of that for a moment. My mind immediately goes to three places:

1. The VEXSL system can enable a level of (near) real time situational awareness and resource tracking like we’ve never seen on large multi-agency events
2. The VEXSL system can enable new types and combinations of data collection for informing predictive and decision support AI tools like we’ve never seen before on any emergency events
3. Through those combinations of situational awareness and integrated data, new automated triggers for things like notifications can occur. I point to a practice called geo-fencing, which is a pretty mature GIS technology whereby an event can be triggered once the geo-fence has been crossed or it overlaps on some other data layer. An example here could be a large digital polygon drawn around a remote community or a value at risk such as critical infrastructure, where drones or aircraft with infra-red sensors identify a fire within that geo-fenced area. Immediate notifications could happen. And the nice thing is that there is a lot of drone technology that can fly without visual flight references, meaning heavy smoke or nighttime conditions aren’t so much of a challenge. It becomes a matter of airspace management, which is a different topic altogether.

So right about now, you’re thinking “that’s pretty cool”, and you’re right about that. I should point out that the use of TAK in the emergency management world is already underway. There are a number of first responder agencies in the US who are in relatively early stages of using TAK based systems. From the research I’ve done, I think I can definitely state that in my opinion TAK is coming to emergency management in a big way soon…very soon. And the folks at VEXSL are already quite a ways down that path. Plus, they have some other very cool stuff. And from what I can see of the VEXSL suite of tools, there are many use cases yet to be discovered and explored. ?But you will have to follow them on their website to learn more:? VEXSL.com.

I think that once you really get your mind wrapped around what VEXSL has to offer, and you do a little or a lot of thinking outside the ellipsoid, you will see a future emergency management state that is quite a bit different than today’s practices. I think VEXSL is a tech company that the emergency management world really needs to take a close look at.

And here’s a final thought I’d like to share with you. I borrowed this short quote from Peter Diamandis, one of today’s foremost thought leaders:

"The future belongs to the futuremakers."

Think about that for a moment. Many of you reading this article are indeed the makers of the future of emergency management.

There are three kinds of people out there:

Those who make things happen;

Those who wait for things to happen; and

Those who say “what happened?”

Which one are you?

Go check out what the VEXSL folks are up to and give them a call. Start some conversations with your peers. Let's see where the future takes us.