Military and police patrols are an important component of combat operations, counter insurgency, peacekeeping, disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance missions. These patrols need to access timely, relevant information about events and conditions along their patrol route, both historical and ongoing. In the current practice, this information is gathered manually prior to the commencement of the patrol through the use of historical databases, current event repositories, and by reviewing records that may be relevant to the area to be patrolled. Because it is manual, this process is fraught with numerous problems including high-cost, slow-speed, and low-reliability. We present an architecture and a prototype system to enhance the effectiveness and security of patrol units, expedite the planning of patrol missions, and reduce the cost of planning. Our system uses commercial off-the-shelf handheld devices and a web-enabled, device-independent software system that enables planning the patrol route and linking related information to that route. Once the patrol starts, the application tracks the unit’s current location and provides real-time information and alerts about areas of interest along the route. The command post can track the location of all units and deviations from their planned routes are flagged and the command post is alerted.

Subjects: Mobile; handheld; geolocation; alerts; device-independent; patrol