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ARL Gateway Information
Product Description
ARL Gateway in a 1U High rack-mount server chassis


Introduction

The Thorcom Automatic Resource Location (ARL) Gateway is a high performance messaging platform for Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) and Automatic Person Location (APL) applications.

Based on Thorcom's successful Short Message Gateway (SMG) the Thorcom ARL Gateway provides the facility to receive resource location data transmitted over both TETRA and GSM/GPRS networks using a range of AVL/APL transmission protocols from a range of vendor's equipment and providing standard output messages to Command & Control systems and GIS/mapping systems.



Supported ARL Formats and Systems

The Thorcom ARL Gateway supports location transmissios from :

TETRA mobiles/hand-portables equipped with ETSI Location Information Protocol (LIP) to TS 100 392-18
TETRA mobiles/hand-portables equipped with Motorola Location Request/Response Protocol (LRRP)
Sepura SRM2000/SRP2000 mobiles/hand-portables equipped with Sepura GPS AVL
Cleartone CM9000 with NMEA internal GPS receiver
Thorcom MCU500e locator/telematics unit on TETRA or GSM/GPRS
Thorcom MDS700 PMR analogue/digital mobile data networks
 

The ARL Gateway outputs location data in a very widely used and supported open standard, known as the Simple Vehicle Location Protocol (SVLP). SVLP is a human-readable ASCII string based protocol developed with an emphasis on being easy to decode. SVLP protocol is supported by the following products and Command and Control system suppliers:

Thorcom Traksys Mapping Applications
Sungard Control Room Products
Steria 'Storm' Control Room Solutions
MIS 'Alert 2000' and 'C3' Command and Control Systems
Fortek VISION Command and Control System
Cleric RESPOND 2 Command and Control System
AssetCo Command and Control System
Northgate (Blue-8) Mapping Systems


Mixed Fleet Operation

One of the key features of the Thorcom ARL Gateway is that it permits the operation of mixed fleets of equipment and networks, isolating the Command & Control system or GIS/mapping system from manufacturer-specific or product-specific functionality.

This means that it is possible to "mix and match" mobile terminals on the network without being locked in to a single supplier, for example an Airwave customer may have Cleartone CM9000 mobiles and Motorola MTH800 hand portables and then at a later date decide to produce Sepura equipment.

By using the Thorcom ARL Gateway the Command & Control system sees one unified implementation which simplifies integration, protects investment, and allows seamless upgrades to be performed.

In addition customers can mix equipment on different radio network bearers - for example a Police Force may have assets that require tracking that cannot justify the use of the Airwave network (on the basis of costs or security) and for which a lower cost GSM/GPRS solution may be more appropriate - the Thorcom ARL Gateway can be used for SMS/Text based location and GPRS based location services on Orange, Vodafone and O2 GSM networks in the UK.


Data Logging

The Thorcom ARL Gateway maintains a history log of all AVL/APL data received and commands send from Command & Control systems. This data can be archived or exported to external management information systems in a variety of formats.

In addition debug data is logged and maintained to allow system performance issues to be investigated and analysed.


High Availability

The Thorcom ARL Gateway is based on an Enterprise Class Linux Operating System and can be configured for high availability operation where a pair of servers are teamed together as "Main" and "Standby" with automatic fail-over.

Text Messaging Gateway

The Thorcom ARL Gateway also provides an SDS Text Messaging Gateway Service allowing Command & Control Systems to send text messages to TETRA and GSM mobiles using the Simple Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) [RFC1645, RFRC1861].

Network Timing

The Thorcom ARL Gateway can be supplied with GPS master clock for validating the timestamp data on AVL/APL transmissions and providing network time syncronisation using the Network Time Protocol (NTP) specification [RFC1305, RFC2030].




Networks
Tetra (O2 Airwave in UK))
GSM networks
MPT1327 networks

Applications
Integrating Location Systems
Hand-held GPS terminals
Mobile GPS terminals
External GPS devices

Markets
O2 Airwave APL users
Emergency Services
Public Utilities

Key Features
Universal protocol support
Bearer Independant
GPS Device Independant
Secure and resillient

Technical Specifications
ARL Gateway Hardware
Chassis 1U High, 19-inch rack-mount server

CPU, Memory,HDD

Enterprise class Intel CPU, High-performance memory and fast Hard disk options
 
Network
Eth 0 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet
Eth 1
10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet
 
Power Supply
Mains 100-240V AC operation, 100 Watts
 
 
ARL Gateway Software
Operating System RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.2
ARL Gateway
Thorcom Short Message Gateway (SMG) software with multi-vendor/multi-protocol ARL (AVL/APL) support for , Motorola LRRP, Thorcom MCU500e, Sepura SRM2000
Supported ARL sources

- ETSI LIP (TS 100 392-18)
- Motorola LRRP
- Thorcom MCU500e
- Sepura SR series
- Cleartone CM9000
- contact Thorcom for others)

Approvals

Approved for connection to the O2 Airwave network in the UK