Joint Situational Awareness System (JSAS):
JSAS provides an information exchange, collaboration and communications capability that enables local, state and federal government entities to share information and coordinate incident management response during an emergency. The program’s goals are to facilitate interagency collaboration, speed joint decision-making, improve coordinated multi-agency response, and provide a testbed platform for a national architecture. JSAS network and server infrastructure is complete, with portal and web services available to over 100 registered users. Available applications include: formatted alert and status reporting; 300+ live video feeds (monitoring regional critical infrastructure); current weather, air traffic and network status maps; and detailed status of radiological and other sensor systems covering the entire New York City metro area. JSAS sustainable operations are in place, including an automated notification system and support/help desk. Current program initiatives include the integration of the JSAS with the SPAWAR’s Naval Post Graduate School’s sensor programs to continue the evolution of the enhanced interoperability and situational awareness concepts.
The JSAS project is aligned with ARDEC’s Project National Shield (PNS) HLD program objective of establishing a nationally integrated system that enables effective collaboration in the event of a natural disaster or manmade terrorist attack.
Specific 2008 JSAS project objectives are:
- Establish a consortium with members from regional agencies.
- Create of Working Groups, Integrated Product Team, Regional Guidance Committee, and Executive Committee to focus on content, procedures, etc
- Establish Operational information for sustainment of the program
- Establish procedures for software releases (system enhancements)
- Integrate geospatial solution into the project’s C2 application
- Establish CONOPS
ARDEC is partnering with PANYNJ on the JSAS project to share lessons learned, technology, techniques and processes to accomplish this regionalization construct. Both the JSAS and the PNS programs will benefit by the experiences and accomplishments of each other, and by the ability to demonstrate interoperability and connectivity between regionally defined nodes. ARDEC shall apply its Research & Development (R&D), program management, engineering, and systems integration, technical expertise, and capabilities.