One-Map Provincial Emergency Command: XX Province Full-Region Intelligent Emergency Dispatch System Case Study

Project Background & Customer Requirements

XX Province, located in a topographically complex inland region prone to natural disasters, experiences frequent mountain torrents, mudslides, and forest fires during the annual flood season. Emergency communication support faces severe challenges such as public network paralysis, delayed on-site information backhaul, and inefficient cross-departmental coordination. In its "Smart Emergency" system construction, the Provincial Emergency Management Department explicitly required the development of an integrated, full-coverage, rapid-response emergency command and dispatch system to change the previous passive situation of "commanding by shouting and deciding by guessing" during disasters.

The customer's core requirements focused on three levels: First, guaranteed communication under extreme conditions, ensuring voice and data connectivity between the front line and the rear command center in "three-cutoff" scenarios (road, power, and public network outages). Second, precise on-site situational awareness, requiring real-time aggregation of rescue personnel locations, disaster video, and environmental sensor data onto a single GIS map at the command center to support flat, visual command. Third, multi-department converged dispatch, enabling unified management of satellite, LTE, PDT, video conferencing, and other communication methods on a single platform, achieving one-click dispatch and multi-network interoperability across levels and regions.

Solution Overall Architecture

To address these requirements, we designed and delivered a three-layer architecture solution for the XX Provincial Emergency Management Department, with a converged communications platform as the brain, full-region intelligent emergency terminals as the tentacles, and satellite paging terminals as the guaranteed link. The overall system consists of a front-end sensing layer, a transport layer, and a converged dispatch application layer, seamlessly integrated with the provincial emergency management comprehensive platform.

The front-end sensing layer deploys three core device types: Backpack/handheld full-region intelligent emergency terminals, integrating Beidou positioning, public/private network multi-mode communication, one-key alarm, and audio/video capture; vehicle-mounted and fixed-point satellite paging terminals, supporting Tiantong, Beidou short message, and other satellite links to ensure two-way short messaging and voice calls in network-disconnected environments; and portable LTE base stations and Mesh ad-hoc network devices for on-site emergency network coverage.

The transport layer converges satellite, 4G/5G, PDT trunking, Mesh, and other links into a converged communications gateway, enabling signaling and media interworking between different network standards. The converged dispatch platform provides a unified command and dispatch portal at the application layer, featuring GIS dispatch, multimedia smart screens, group push-to-talk, barge-in, forced release, recording, emergency broadcast, and an intelligent routing engine that automatically selects the optimal link to ensure command delivery.

Key Technologies & Functional Implementation

Multi-Layered Satellite Paging Guaranteed Communication

Satellite paging is the core life-saving method in the "three-cutoff" scenario. The solution is equipped with multi-mode satellite intelligent terminals supporting Tiantong-1 satellite mobile communications and Beidou-3 regional short messages, automatically switching to the satellite link when the public network signal completely disappears. The command center can initiate individual or group calls to satellite terminals directly via the dispatch console, or send text commands, causing the terminal to ring and announce, ensuring it can be "reached" immediately. The terminal also integrates a dual Beidou/GPS positioning module, uploading location every 10 seconds to form a continuous movement trajectory, providing a basis for commanders to assess the route of advance.

Full-Region Intelligent Emergency Terminals Build On-Site Sensing Network

The full-region intelligent emergency terminal is the "fist" equipment on-site, highly integrating a broadband ad-hoc network module, high-definition camera, ruggedized tablet, and push-to-talk handset. Upon arrival at the disaster area, team members automatically form a Mesh network, supporting rapid wireless broadband interworking of over 30 nodes. Front-line video is backhauled via Mesh multi-hop to a portable command box, then via satellite link or temporarily deployed LTE network to the rear. The terminal is also compatible with analog and PDT digital push-to-talk, directly interworking with existing radios, achieving "seamless roaming" within the team.

Visual & GIS Converged Dispatch

The converged dispatch platform, centered on a GIS engine, overlays all terminal icons, positioning tracks, real-time video, and disaster layers onto a geographic information base map. Commanders can circle any area on the map to select communication devices, initiate video conferences or converged dispatch, achieving "what you see is what you get" cross-network command. When a disaster occurs, the system automatically pops up video windows around the alarming terminal, and based on pre-set plans, automatically forms an emergency command group, pulling relevant responsible persons, front-line team members, and drone video sources into the same virtual meeting room, significantly reducing response time.

Typical System Application Scenarios

During a major rainstorm and flood disaster in the 2026 flood season, the system underwent its first real-world test. Within 2 hours of the disaster, the Provincial Emergency Department dispatched 3 assault teams carrying 8 full-region intelligent emergency terminals and 2 satellite paging terminals into mountainous areas with severed roads, power, and communications. Front-line team members established a guaranteed voice link with the command center via satellite paging terminals, and the commander clearly saw the belt-shaped distribution of each squad's location on the GIS large screen. Simultaneously, a terminal deployed on an isolated island village transmitted high-definition disaster video over 3 km via the Mesh network, ultimately feeding into the converged dispatch platform. Based on real-time video, the command center decisively dispatched a helicopter for precise rescue, evacuating over 230 people. Throughout the process, cross-departmental fire, medical, and militia communication systems achieved channel interworking via the converged dispatch, with no information silos.

Additionally, during forest fire patrols, rangers carrying full-region intelligent emergency terminals can press a one-key alarm upon spotting a fire point. The command center GIS map immediately flashes the alarm point, automatically retrieves weather, water source, and road information near that location, and sends assembly instructions to surrounding satellite terminals, buying critical time for "early detection and early response."

Project Value & Customer Feedback

After project completion, the XX Provincial Emergency Management Department achieved three transformations in emergency communication support: Communication links evolved from "relying on the public network" to "sky-ground complementary, automatic switching" elastic networking; the command model evolved from "single voice call" to "video + data + voice" visual multimedia dispatch; and the response mechanism evolved from "level-by-level transmission" to "flat one-key response." The activation of the converged dispatch platform also consolidated 8 previously independent business communication networks (fire, water resources, geology, forest fire prevention, etc.) onto a single map for management, reducing duplicate investment and improving overall coordination efficiency.

Provincial department leaders commented during the acceptance meeting: "Now, the signal at the disaster site is like tap water—turn on the faucet and it's ready to use. The command center has truly become the smart brain for disaster rescue. Especially the satellite paging function allows us to deliver commands to the last mile even in 'three-cutoff' environments." Currently, the province has promoted this solution to all 14 prefecture-level emergency bureaus, forming a province-city-site three-tier linked emergency communication support system.