In February 2010, Vancouver will play host to the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the globe's premier international sporting event. With 80 countries participating in over 200 events at 15 different venues, 1.6 million tickets now on sale, and an expected 3 billion television viewers worldwide, visitors will be numerous, and some, high profile. Supporting Games-time operations and public safety and security agencies in this complex, distributed and fast-paced environment will require not only planning and manpower, but the latest technology in radio surveillance, including CRC's Spectrum Explorer®.

Industry Canada has the mandate to manage the efficient use of Canada's radio spectrum and provide support for public safety related activities. It also has the lead role for emergency telecommunications in Canada.

"Industry Canada will be present at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games to provide spectrum management and interference mitigation for this event," explains John Lodge, Research Program Manager in charge of spectrum monitoring R&D at CRC. "Industry Canada's Vancouver regional office and CRC will have both fixed site and mobile monitoring capabilities at this event. The overall radio traffic is expected to be extremely heavy, resulting in many issues that will require quick resolution."

In preparation for these events, the Communications Research Centre participated in a unique demonstration of technology organized by the Major Events Coordinated Security Solutions project (MECSS) on October 24. MECSS is a special project under the Public Security Technical Program, which is led by Defence Research and Development Canada's Centre for Security Science. It aims to assist authorities in reducing the security risk associated with major events, such as the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games and the G8 Summit, through the coordinated application of science and technology (S&T).

"The federal S&T community has developed innovative systems for information management and decision support, systems that could play an important role in maintaining security and public safety at events like the 2010 Winter Games," explains CRC's Luc Boucher, Program Manager, Wireless Applications and Systems Research, and a member of the MECSS working group. "But for these systems to reach their full potential, federal, provincial and municipal organizations in charge of public safety and security have to know they exist and have to be able to access them."

The October 24 showcase, which brought together federal technology developers from various departments and agencies, included a full-day demonstration, with a VIP session for some senior public servants in the afternoon. Exhibitors included Health Canada, Environment Canada, Ottawa Police Services, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and CRC's Charles Benoit, demonstrating the Spectrum Explorer.

Charles Benoit, Research Engineer, Communications Signal Processing group, demonstrating Spectrum Explorer.

Spectrum Explorer is a sophisticated radio surveillance system that can be used to detect and analyze communication signals, as well as locate the source of the signals. What makes the system so attractive for security and policing personnel is its small size and flexibility. Unlike older systems that gobbled power, were noisy, and had to be mounted on a rack due to their weight and size, Spectrum Explorer is compact, portable and flexible - the size of shoebox attached to a laptop - and can be operated from a small van or car.

The heart of the Spectrum Explorer, Charles Benoit explains, is the wideband scanner. By directing a tuner (like that in a radio) to sweep a broad range of frequencies, and directing the information via a digitizer to the laptop, the information is then displayed as an energy spectrum, as channels, and/or as detections. Since each device - for example a cell phone - uses a specific frequency when transmitting, it boosts the energy at that frequency. This shows up as a sharp spike at that frequency on the wideband scanner display.

Once a spike is detected, the user can then get a detailed analysis of that signal using other facets of the program. For example, the direction finder allows the user to pinpoint the location of the emitter. Using the spectrum analyzer the user can zero in on a narrow band of the spectrum and identify the type of signal being transmitted (AM, FM, SSB, GMSK, etc.). For more information on Spectrum Explorer, please see Eye on Technology Issue No.4 - Summer 2006.

One of the big concerns at international events like the Olympic and Paralympic Games is radio interference. Each country regulates its own radio spectrum differently, and not all countries allot the same bands to the same uses. With so many international visitors expected at the Olympics, it is entirely possible that a visitor could arrive with a wireless communication device that transmits on the same frequency used by Vancouver's police or ambulance service, thus interfering with emergency response measures. Spectrum Explorer will be used to scan the radio spectrum throughout the event, identify problematic signals and locate the sources so that the problem can be resolved.

While other systems exist for monitoring and analyzing the RF spectrum, Benoit stresses that Spectrum Explorer has several characteristics that make it unique. Because it can be run using over 20 readily-available hardware configurations, clients aren't tied into buying high-cost hardware. With a range of equipment to choose from they can base their decision on their budget and needs. Spectrum Explorer is also "open-software" making it easy to add applications as the need arises.

"We've done a lot of work integrating a low-cost platform into a small package to get into the market of mobile spectrum analysis and monitoring," says Benoit. "Some departments and countries don't have big budgets, so we needed a low-cost solution, and that's what we can offer them now."

For more information on CRC's participation in MECSS contact Luc Boucher at luc.boucher@crc.ca.

For information on the Spectrum Explorer contact John Lodge at john.lodge@crc.ca or visit the Spectrum Explorer web site.