The invention is expected to be advantageously applicable to emergency operations control rooms that integrate telephony and radio communications to control networked dispatch positions of public safety officers, for example police officers. Accordingly, such applications should particularly, but not exclusively, be borne in mind when considering this specification.

In this specification, the phrase “operational field” should be interpreted broadly to include all fields of public safety and emergency operations, including internal police agencies and outside organizations.

Background of the invention The inventors are familiar with console systems, for example Zetron systems, that digitally integrate telephony and analogue radio, call handling and monitoring and logging functions into a single operator interface. Initially, such dispatching systems were ordered for old obsoleted analogue base stations only. A migration from analogue to digital communication system occurred (Tetra,

Digital Mobile Radio DMR, and Marine VHF). Such systems support ports that are assignable to operators, telephones and dispatch radios, and provide for operator control and dispatch of field officers via the single operator interface. The single operator interface of such digital console system typically includes a host computer, video monitor, and desktop speakers for communicating with the radios of field officers via either wired or IP networks. With regard to the field radios, known digital console systems of the kind provide for communication and integration with traditional dual band radios only. The advent of more recent radio communication standards, such as Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) and Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) have introduced the use of DMR, TETRA and Marine VHF radios in emergency operations communications networks. The inventors have had a lot of problems to interface the old Zetron systems to work with new digital radio systems. Accordingly, the inventors have used the old Zetron system to integrate with Tetra, Marine VHF, and Digital Mobile Radio Systems.

The inventors did not have backup support from the Zetron company; purchased the system through from IAL company which got bankrupt, thus leaving them without any technical support at all.

For Tetra mobile radio they could get some support to buy IRIM units to interface TMR radios for voice and SMS text messages to tetra handheld radios. However, for Tetra handheld radios, Motorola Digital radios, and Marine VHF radios there was no solution available at all. As a result, the existing systems were useless as Zetron offered a very expensive new system.

As a result, the inventors have identified a need for integrating, amongst others, digital radios with existing dual band radio control room communications systems. The present invention aims to provide a mechanism to satisfy such need.

Summary of the invention

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided an operations control room radio communications system which includes: a first digital radio of a user in an operational field, for example a Tetra handheld radio; a second digital radio of a user in an operational field, for example a

Digital Mobile Radio (DMR); one or more digital radio interface modules (DRIM), each digital radio interface module comprising at least one digital to analogue radio conversion circuit, a digital radio interface, and an analogue radio interface, the at least one digital to analogue radio conversion circuit being in bidirectional data communication with the digital radio interface and the analogue radio interface; and a host console computer having installed thereon a Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application with some necessary settings according to the digital radio interface modules (DRIMs), the host console computer being connected to and in operative communication with the first digital radio and the second digital radio of the users in the operational field via one or more dual-band radio modules (BDBR) and via the one or more digital radio interface modules (DRIMs) for patching of radio communications to and from the first and second digital radios of the users in the operational fields by an operator of the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application, thereby operable to patch any communication network to another communication network depending on the situation at the spot.

The first and second digital radios may include any one or more of: a Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA); a Trunked Mobile Radio (TMR); and a Digital Mobile Radio (DMR).

The host console computer may be connected to and in operative communication with the one or two dual-band radio modules (BDBR) via a digital switch, for example a Zetron 5020 for operative routing of the radio communications between the four wireless communication radios.

The system may include an analogue radio of a user in an operational field. The system may include one or more analogue radio interface modules (ARIM), each analogue radio interface module comprising at least one analogue radio conversion circuit, an analogue radio input interface, and an analogue radio output interface, the at least one analogue radio conversion circuit being in bidirectional data communication with the analogue radio input interface and the analogue radio output interface.

The host console computer may be connected to and in operative communication with the analogue radio of the user in the operational field via the one or two dual-band radio modules (BDBR) and via the one or more analogue radio interface modules (ARIM) for patching of radio communications between any one or more of the first and second digital radios and the analogue radio by an operator of the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application with some necessary settings according to the digital radio interface modules (DRIMs).

The analogue radio may include any one or more of: an Ultra High Frequency (UHF); and a Very High Frequency (VHF) radio, for example a marine radio.

To this end, the digital switch may be operable to route the radio communications between the analogue radio and any one or more of the first and second digital radios.

The radio communications may include any one or more of: voice communications; audio communications; and text communications, such as Short Message Service (SMS) fortetra wireless communication radios.

The at least one digital to analogue radio conversion circuit of the one or more digital radio interface modules (DRIMs) may include a voltage regulator, transistor and a relay, such as a Reed Relay.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided method of controlling operations control room radio communications comprising the step of: receiving a first radio communications signal from a first digital radio and a second radio communications signal from a second digital radio at one or more digital radio interface modules (DRIMs), the one or more digital radio interface modules each comprising at least one digital to analogue radio conversion circuit, a digital radio interface, and an analogue radio interface, the at least one digital to analogue radio conversion circuit being in bidirectional data communication with the digital radio interface and the analogue radio interface; transmitting the first and second radio communications signals to a host console computer having installed thereon a Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application, the host console computer being connected to and in operative communication with the first digital radio and the second digital radio via one or more dual-band radio modules (BDBR) and via the one or more digital radio interface modules (DRIMs); and patching any one of the first and second radio communications signals to and from the four digital radios by an operator of the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application.

Transmitting the four radio communications signals to the host console computer may include transmitting the radio communications signals to the host console computer via a digital switch.

The method may include receiving an analogue radio communications signal from an analogue radio at one or more analogue radio interface modules (ARI M), each analogue radio interface module comprising at least one analogue radio conversion circuit, an analogue radio input interface, and an analogue radio output interface, the at least one analogue radio conversion circuit being in bidirectional data communication with the analogue radio input interface and the analogue radio output interface. The method may include transmitting the analogue radio communications signal to the host console computer via the one or more dual-band radio modules (BDBR).

The method may include patching the analogue radio communications signal to any one or more of the first and second digital radios by the operator of the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application.

Patching of the analogue radio communications signal may include transmitting a patched signal to the any one or more of the first and second digital radios via the digital switch.

According to yet another aspect of the invention, there is provided a computer program product for controlling operations control room radio communications, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored computer-readable program code, the computer-readable program code executable by processing circuit to perform the steps in the method of controlling operations control room radio communications as hereinbefore described.

The invention is now described, by way of non-limiting example, with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings.

Drawings

In the drawings,

Figure 1 illustrates, schematically, an operations control room radio communications system in accordance with one aspect of the invention.

Figure 2 illustrates, schematically, a method of controlling operations control room radio communications in accordance with another aspect of the invention.

Figure 3 shows a circuit diagram of a digital radio interface module in accordance with another aspect of the invention. Detailed Description of the Invention

With reference to figure 1 , reference numeral (10) denotes, generally, an operations control room radio communications system according to one embodiment of the invention. The system (10) comprises a first digital radio (60) of a user in an operational field, for example a first digital radio of an ambulance; a second digital radio (62) of a user in an operational field, for example a radio in a police vehicle; and an analogue radio (64) of a user in an operational field, for example a marine radio. In this embodiment, the first digital radio (60) is a Trunked Mobile Radio (TMR), the second digital radio (62) is a Digital Mobile Radio (DMR), and the analogue radio (64) is a Very High Frequency (VHF) marine radio. The Zetron dispatcher can communicate all the radios of different wireless communication networks simultaneously. The first digital radio (60) is connected to and in data communication with a digital radio interface module (DRIM) (30), the digital radio interface module (30) comprising a digital to analogue radio conversion circuit (40), a digital radio interface (44), and an analogue radio interface (42), the digital to analogue radio conversion circuit (40) being in bidirectional data communication with the digital radio interface (44) and the analogue radio interface (42).

Likewise, the second digital radio (62) is connected to and in data communication with a digital radio interface module (DRIM) (30), the digital radio interface module (30) comprising a digital to analogue radio conversion circuit (40), a digital radio interface (44), and an analogue radio interface (42), the digital to analogue radio conversion circuit (40) being in bidirectional data communication with the digital radio interface (44) and the analogue radio interface (42).

The system (10) includes a host console computer (14) having installed thereon a Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application with some necessary settings according to the digital radio interface modules (DRIMs) (12), the host console computer (14) being connected to and in operative communication with the first digital radio (60) and the second digital radio (62) of the users in the operational field via dual-band radio modules (BDBR) (18) and (20) respectively, and via the digital radio interface modules (DRIMs) (30) for patching of radio communications to and from the first digital radio (60) and the second digital radio (62) by an operator of the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application (12).

In this embodiment, the host console computer (14) is connected to and in operative communication with the dual-band radio modules (BDBR) (18) and (20) via a digital switch (16) for operative routing of the radio communications between the first digital radio (60) and the second digital radio (62).

The analogue radio (64) is connected to and in communication with an analogue radio interface module (ARIM) (34) comprising an analogue radio conversion circuit (50), an analogue radio input interface (54) and an analogue radio output interface (52), the analogue radio interface module (ARIM) (34) being in bidirectional communication with the analogue radio input interface (54) and the analogue radio output interface (52).

The host console computer (14) is connected to and in operative communication with the analogue radio (64) of the user in the operational field via a like dual-band radio modules (BDBR) (22) and via the analogue radio interface module (ARIM) (34) for patching of radio communications between the first digital radio (60), the second digital radio (62), and the analogue radio (64) by the operator of the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application (12).

Further in this embodiment, the digital switch (16) is operable to route the radio communications between the analogue radio (64) and the first digital radio (60) and second digital radio (62).

With reference to figure 2, numeral (100) denotes, generally, a method of controlling operations control room radio communications in accordance with another embodiment of the invention, the method (100) being conducted at the system (10) of figure 1.

At a first step (101), a first radio communications signal is transmitted from the first digital radio (60) and received at the digital radio interface modules (DRIM) (30), the digital radio interface module (30) comprising the digital to analogue radio conversion circuit (40), digital radio interface (44), and analogue radio interface (42).

At step (102), the first radio communications signal is converted and transmitted to the host console computer (14) having installed thereon the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application (12) via the dual-band radio module (BDBR) (18) and the digital switch (16) at step (103).

Next at step (104), the first radio communications signal is patched to the second digital radio (62) by the operator of the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application (12) by transmitting the first radio communications signal to the second digital radio (62) via the digital switch (16), the dual-band radio module (BDBR) (20) at step (105), and the digital radio interface module (DRIM) (30) at step (106).

In keeping with the method (100) of figure 2 and according to another embodiment of the method: at step (108), an analogue radio communications signal is transmitted from the analogue radio (64) and received at the analogue radio interface modules (ARIM) (34) comprising the analogue radio conversion circuit (50), analogue radio input interface (54), and analogue radio output interface (52).

Next at step (109), the analogue radio communications signal is converted and transmitted to the host console computer (14) having installed thereon the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application (12) via the dual-band radio module (BDBR) (22) and the digital switch (16). Next at step (110), the analogue radio communications signal is patched to the second digital radio (62) by the operator of the Digital Console Interface Management (DCIM) software application (12) by transmitting the analogue radio communications signal to the second digital radio (62) via the digital switch (16), the dual-band radio module (BDBR) (20) at step (110), and the digital radio interface module (DRIM) (30) at step (106).

T urning to figure 3, numeral 200 shows an example circuit diagram of the digital radio interface module of figures 1 and 2. The circuit diagram is for a car kit interface and includes a voltage regulator (202), a relay (204), and a transistor (206).

Advantageously, for the use of emergency and crisis situations the inventors interfaced car-kits with Zetron to be used for guests from different organizations using different wireless communication networks, participating in emergency and crisis conditions are interfaced with our communication network on urgent basis just by installing one of their handheld radio on the above mentioned carkit without any programming and security issues. After the emergency and crisis conditions they are instantly isolated from our communication network by just lifting the handheld radio from the above mentioned carkit. Furthermore, testing of all the wireless equipment through patching, single mode communication/ multiline communication and installation work of all the wireless equipment, interface accessories, Zetron PC + 5020 DCIM with some necessary settings according to the digital radio interface modules (DRIMs) and audio routing through speaker's headsets.