Emergency Operations at UC Berkeley
In partnership with the US Department of Energy, the UC Berkeley Regents recently upgraded their Emergency Operations Center (EOC) located in a high-profile experimental facility in Berkeley, CA. Its new audiovisual system is built around RGB Spectrum’s Enterprise MCMS®, a collaborative control room solution.
The UC Regents commissioned Pacific Coast AV, an integration firm based in Northern California, to design a system that could link communications between the research facility’s security personnel, UC Berkeley’s Police Department, and municipal fire and police departments. Previously, the display system had consisted of individual monitors with minimal switching and collaborative capabilities. The main monitoring room of the EOC now features a 2x3 video wall of 55” monitors and four operator control stations.
Pacific Coast AV selected RGB Spectrum’s Enterprise MCMS system to enable multi-site collaboration and consolidate the EOC’s disparate resources. The new control room system integrates new and legacy computer systems, client/server systems, and direct video feeds on a central video wall. RGB Spectrum’s OmniWall® Display Processor controls the video wall display and enables collaboration amongst operators. When a wide-scale response is required, EOC supervisors can communicate directly with other campus and community agencies to coordinate the deployment of emergency personnel and equipment.
A typical monitoring scenario might include the display of cable broadcast channels (news, incident reporting and weather), surveillance video from VMS security systems, and/or content from visitors’ laptops or tablets. All system resources are routed through the OmniWall processor to the video wall or to any of the control stations.
For day-to-day operation, an operator uses presets to change displayed resources. The processor’s pan, zoom, and scaling capabilities allow the operator to focus in on particular areas of interest. A video conferencing codec enables collaboration with on-campus security personnel or other emergency organizations in the community. During emergency situations, the control arbitration features of Enterprise MCMS allow multiple operators to share control of all system resources without physically moving between separate control points.
The Enterprise MCMS system enables the centralized display and control of system resources for enhanced situational awareness. A “drag and drop” GUI design simplifies operation and allows users to easily route system resources to any display. The versatile system can also be reconfigured and expanded as needed to support future requirements.
RGB Spectrum’s products are manufactured in the US and provide 24/7 reliability. For mission critical applications, its powerful solutions deliver superb visual clarity, redundancy and real-time performance, while also enabling the collaborative coordination of emergency response.
For more information on Pacific Coast AV, please visit their website at www.pcavinc.com.
RGB Spectrum is a leading designer and manufacturer of mission-critical, real-time audio-visual solutions for a civilian, government, and military client base. The company offers integrated hardware, software, and control systems to satisfy the most demanding requirements. Since 1987, RGB Spectrum has been dedicated to helping its customers achieve Better Decisions. Faster.™
