The central server of the Border Guard's distributed multimedia system for monitoring and visualisation of ongoing and archival events

Abstract

The paper presents the architecture and functionalities of the central server (CENTER) of the distributed system for the Polish Border Guard (BG) for monitoring maritime areas. The overall system has been extended to incorporate, apart from map data, also different multimedia elements such as video from cameras or audio from telephone connections operated by BG units. This requires new system elements: Archive Servers for storing new types of data and Events Visualization Post for the presentation of new media along with the presentation of ongoing or archival tactical situations on maps. The paper focuses on new functionalities of the CENTER and integration of new elements with the rest of the system. ARTICLE HISTORY

Stradar — Multimedia Dispatcher and Teleinformation System for the Border Guard

“…The gathered measurement data also allowed to verify the assumptions used for creation of models presented in [3]. Especially, the measured processing times and messages intensities can be used to verify assumed values of these parameters.…”

“…The basic map data that the operators can visualize on maps and in tables are provided by the MapServer software [1,3] available in the Central Server (CS) (in case of stationary consoles and the EVP) and URCs (in case of mobile consoles). The available map data is gathered by the MapServers (central and mobile) which form a distributed network collecting map data from different sources.…”

“…All other data, the multimedia information that represent significantly larger volume, is stored in the Archive Servers (AS) that are based on cloud technology, which allow for data search and access. In order to control and facilitate access to the resources located in AS, the central MapServer provides the EVP support that manages tasks notifications and multimedia access, for example current or archival view from the camera located on a particular MU [3,4].…”

“…This means that its performance is crucial to the overall system response times. In previous work STRADAR system elements models have been presented and analyzed [3] which helped in identification of potential system weak points. At current system development stage it was now possible to measure the processing and wait times of messages in MapServer modules [1,4] which have been used to verify system performance and predict potential bottlenecks.…”

“…Based on this analysis propositions for the system improvements have been suggested. Additionally, measured data allow for validation of models presented in [3] and identification of their weak points and can help in development of more accurate models.…”