Hardening for Commercially Available Hand Held Computing and Communications Devices for First Responders

First responders operate in emergency situations that require ruggedized gear that can survive temperature, impact, and moisture. Utilizing the communication devices that first responders already carry on them has many benefits including: always on-scene, reduced cost of distributing equipment, elimination of training requirements, and many others. Ruggedizing commercial hand held computing and communications devices provides the DHS the benefit of state of the art handsets without having to pay for the development of custom hardware. SA Photonics has developed a hardware agnostic approach to ruggedizing commercial off-the-shelf mobile communication devices. Our approach protects devices from impact, moisture, and temperature extremes. The SA Photonics ruggedized enclosure was especially designed to protect the weakest part of a smart phone; the glass touch screen. This protection is provided while still maintaining full functionality of a touch screen, such as pinch and swipe, that first responders are accustom to using in their daily lives. Additional battery life is also provided with an auxiliary battery and solar and inductive and solar charging features. Our design can be modified to fit any smart phone or tablet platform. In a Phase II effort, SA Photonics will complete the detailed design of the rugged smartphone case system. We will then build and test 12 prototype units and have users evaluate their performance. We will also develop custom apps for First Responder Use. The SA Photonics ruggedized case system will have commercial applications in first responder groups, Fire, Police, S.W.A.T, and military sectors.