ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)

ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)






Technical Report
Satellite Earth Stations and Systems (SES);
Overview of present satellite emergency
communications resources

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2 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)



Reference
RTR/SES-00360
Keywords
architecture, broadband, emergency, satellite
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3 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
Contents
Intellectual Property Rights . 4
Foreword . 4
Introduction . 4
1 Scope . 5
2 References . 5
2.1 Normative references . 5
2.2 Informative references . 5
3 Abbreviations . 6
4 Positioning of the problem . 7
4.1 Disaster management and response . 8
4.1.1 Disaster management cycle. 8
4.1.2 Disaster response . 9
4.2 Disaster management and Information and Communication Technology. 11
4.3 Satellite-assisted disaster management . 11
4.4 Emergency telecommunications . 12
5 Satellite systems for disaster management . 14
5.1 Narrowband telecommunications . 14
5.2 Broadband telecommunications . 14
5.3 Global navigation and positioning . 15
5.4 Observation . 15
6 Regulatory and standardization aspects. 15
6.1 Regulatory aspects . 15
6.1.1 Basic overview on current spectrum allocations . 15
6.1.2 International Organizations . 16
6.2 Standardization aspects . 16
7 International initiatives . 17
7.1 The Tampere Convention . 17
7.2 The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters . 17
7.3 UN-SPIDER . 17
History . 18

ETSI

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4 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
Intellectual Property Rights
IPRs essential or potentially essential to the present document may have been declared to ETSI. The information
pertaining to these essential IPRs, if any, is publicly available for ETSI members and non-members, and can be found
in ETSI SR 000 314: "Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Essential, or potentially Essential, IPRs notified to ETSI in
respect of ETSI standards", which is available from the ETSI Secretariat. Latest updates are available on the ETSI Web
server (http://ipr.etsi.org).
Pursuant to the ETSI IPR Policy, no investigation, including IPR searches, has been carried out by ETSI. No guarantee
can be given as to the existence of other IPRs not referenced in ETSI SR 000 314 (or the updates on the ETSI Web
server) which are, or may be, or may become, essential to the present document.
Foreword
This Technical Report (TR) has been produced by ETSI Technical Committee Satellite Earth Stations and
Systems (SES).
Introduction
Recent major catastrophes have raised awareness of the need for effective emergency telecommunication networks.
Satellite communication, observation and navigation are the cornerstones of emergency management because they are
resilient to Earth damage and provide a wide coverage of service.
Based on these considerations, TC SES has created in September 2006 a new working group dedicated to Satellite
Emergency Communications, namely SatEC, and requested SatEC to start its work by a survey on satellite emergency
communications.
The present document is a revision of the initial document TR 102 641.
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5 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
1 Scope
The present document presents an overview of concepts, systems and initiatives related to the use of space resources in
the context of disaster management, including:
• An introduction to the field of disaster management and the relation with Information and Communication
Technology.
• The role of space technology in disaster management.
• The requirements of telecommunication systems deployed for disaster management.
• A list of typical space resources used, covering earth observation, satellite navigation and satellite
communications.
• A list of initiatives in the field of emergency communications, including standardization activities.
The present document does not cover extensively any given technology through e.g. project descriptions or equipment
characteristics as it is meant as an overview document.
2 References
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
reference document (including any amendments) applies.
Referenced documents which are not found to be publicly available in the expected location might be found at
http://docbox.etsi.org/Reference.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
2.1 Normative references
The following referenced documents are necessary for the application of the present document.
Not applicable.
2.2 Informative references
The following referenced documents are not necessary for the application of the present document but they assist the
user with regard to a particular subject area.
[i.1] "Environmental health in emergencies and disasters: a practical guide". Edited by B. Wisner and
J. Adams, World Health Organization, 2003.
[i.2] ETSI TS 102 181: "Emergency Communications (EMTEL); Requirements for communication
between authorities/organizations during emergencies".
[i.3] Recommendation ITU-T X.1303: "Common alerting protocol (CAP 1.1)".
[i.4] ETSI TR 103 166: "Satellite Earth Stations and Systems (SES); Satellite Emergency
Communications (SatEC); Emergency Communication Cell over Satellite (ECCS)".
[i.5] ISO 22320: "Societal security -- Emergency management -- Requirements for incident response".
[i.6] OASIS, OASIS Emergency Management TC: "Common Alerting Protocol Version 1.2".
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6 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
[i.7] OASIS, OASIS Emergency Management TC: "Emergency Data Exchange Language Resource
Messaging (EDXL-RM) 1.0".
[i.8] "EU Handbook on assistance interventions in the frame of the Community Mechanism for
Cooperation in civil protection", European Commission, Environment Directorate-General,
May 2003.
[i.9] ETSI SR 002 777: "Emergency Communications (EMTEL); Test/verification procedure for
emergency calls".
[i.10] ETSI TR 102 180: "Emergency Communications (EMTEL); Basis of requirements for
communication of individuals with authorities/organizations in case of distress (Emergency call
handling)".
[i.11] ETSI TR 102 299: "Emergency Communications (EMTEL); Collection of European Regulatory
Texts and orientations".
[i.12] ETSI TR 102 476: "Emergency Communications (EMTEL); Emergency calls and VoIP: possible
short and long term solutions and standardization activities".
[i.13] ETSI TR 102 410: "Emergency Communications (EMTEL); Basis of requirements for
communications between individuals and between individuals and authorities whilst emergencies
are in progress".
[i.14] ERC Report 25: "The European table of frequency allocations and applications in the frequency
range 9 kHz to 3000 GHz (ECA table)".
[i.15] ITU Radio Regulations.
[i.16] UN resolution 61/110: "United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster
Management and Emergency Response".
3 Abbreviations
For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations apply:
BGAN Broadband Global Area Network
CAP Common Alerting Protocol
CEPT Conférence Européenne des Postes et Télécommunications
COP Common Operational Picture
COSPAS Cosmicheskaya Sistyema Poiska Avariynich Sudov
DC Direct Current
ECA European Common Allocation
ECC European Communications Committee
EGNOS European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service
ELT Emergency Locator Transmitter
EMTEL EMergency TELecommunications
EO Earth Observation
EPIRB Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon
ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute
EXDL Emergency Data Exchange Language
FSS Fixed-Satellite Service
GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System
GOES Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
GPS Global Positioning System
GSO Geostationary Orbit
ICT Information and Communication Technology
IPR Intellectual Property Right
ISO International Standardization Organization
ITU International Telecommunication Union
ITU-R International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunications Sector
ITU-T International Telecommunication Union Telecommunications Sector
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LEO Low Earth Orbit
MSS Mobile Satellite Service
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NRBC Nuclear, Radiological, Bacteriological, Chemical
OASIS Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
PAMR Public Access Mobile Radio
PCP Partnership Co-operation Panel
PLB Personal Locator Beacon
PLMN Public Land Mobile Network
PMR Private Mobile Radio
POES Polar Operational Environmental Satellite
PPDR Public Protection and Disaster Relief
PSTN Public Switched Telephony Network
RDSS Radio Determination Satellite Service
SARSAT Search And Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking
SatEC Satellite Emergency Communications Working Group
SCN Satellite Communications and Navigation Working Group
SG Study Group
SLA Service Level Agreement
TC SES Technical Committee Satellite Earth Station and Systems
TC Technical Committee
TETRA Terrestrial Trunked Radio
TR Technical Report
TS Technical Specification
VPN Virtual Private Network
VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal
WGFM Working Group Frequency Management
XML Extensible Markup Language
4 Positioning of the problem
According to ETSI EMTEL Special Committee, emergency is an urgent need for assistance or relief.
Emergencies are roughly categorized as (1) daily emergencies which are handled by regular emergency services (fire
brigades, emergency medical services, etc.) and (2) disaster emergencies (disasters for short) which are - according to
the definition of the World Health Organization, a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society
causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses that exceed the ability of the affected
community or society to cope using its own resources [i.1]. Disasters result from natural or man-made hazards.
The outcome of a major disaster is mainly characterized by:
• A wide area is affected.
• Environmental damages are occurring.
• Human lives are in danger.
• Water, electricity and transportation infrastructures are impaired.
• Daily emergency organizations and infrastructures are deeply affected and overwhelmed so they cannot ensure
their missions.
• The economical situation of the affected country may be impaired on a long-term basis (several years).
• Terrestrial telecommunications infrastructures are destroyed, saturated or simply not available.
The present document focuses on the use of satellite telecommunications systems in order to optimize disaster
management hence mitigate the negative impacts of a disaster on these occasions. Because of the scope of SES/SatEC
the present document will focus on emergency telecommunications.
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8 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
While not within the major focus of the present document, the following topics are also related:
a) the use of satellite-based navigation and Earth observation services for disaster management; and
b) the management of daily i.e. regular emergencies such as day-to-day fire fighting missions and the emergency
medical service.
4.1 Disaster management and response
4.1.1 Disaster management cycle
The United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs defines disaster management as a comprehensive approach
and activities to reduce the adverse impacts of disasters. It is important to note that disaster management is not limited
to the response upon the occurrence of a disaster.
In order to better grasp all activities related to disaster management; it is often split in four broad phases:
• Disaster mitigation and prevention: a set of measures to reduce or neutralize the impact of natural hazards by
reducing social, functional, or physical vulnerability.
• Disaster preparedness: the organization, education, and training of the population and all relevant institutions
to facilitate effective control, early warning, evacuation, rescue, relief and assistance operations in the event of
a disaster or emergency.
• Emergency warning and response: a sum of decisions and actions taken during and after disaster, including
alerting, immediate relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.
• On-going recovery and relief: a set of measures aiming to restore the affected place to its prior state (i.e. before
the disaster).
The disaster recovery phase is likely to trigger a new iteration of disaster management starting with disaster mitigation
and prevention. For this reason, disaster management is often represented as a never-ending cycle of mitigation,
preparedness, response and recovery as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The disaster management cycle
Efficient and effective disaster management relies on proper coordination. Coordination calls for communication among
the involved parties. Communication relies on the availability of adequate telecommunications systems fitting the
specifics of the environment (distance among the parties, mobility, topology), the context of information exchanges
(nature and amount of the information, frequency of the exchanges).
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9 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
The next paragraph describes more in details the response phase. Indeed, upon a disaster, existing telecommunication
infrastructures are often destroyed, severely impaired or saturated (if present at all).
4.1.2 Disaster response
Disaster response is the most acute phase of disaster management. It encompasses several types of missions:
• Alerting: citizens are alerted (e.g. about sheltering procedures). Emergency responders and authorities are
alerted.
• Scouting and evaluation assessment: the situation is assessed in order to identify existing threats, define the
proper answer and estimate the resources to deploy.
• Emergency response: immediate and urgent actions are taken so to:
a) minimize the number of casualties;
b) mitigate the impact of immediate and significant threats (e.g. distributing iodine pills in case of nuclear
contamination, first aid/medical care, emergency sheltering/lodging, fire fighting).
• Disaster relief: actions are taken so to cope with situations where life is not immediately threaten
(e.g. installing water sanitization plants and power generators, decontamination against NRBC agents,
psychological assistance, food and medics supply) but endangered on the medium term.
In order to ensure effective response and an efficient use of resources, several measures are taken in the organization of
the response:
• The operation area (i.e. the area suffering the consequences of a disaster) is partitioned into zones so to ease
management and cope with the escalation of the operation.
• Responders are scheduled and dispatched according to their disciplines with the objective to compartment as
much as possible the activities on the operation area in order to ease global management and relax constraints
on communication.
• Command and reporting follows a hierarchical scheme in order to ease coordination and make sure that
relevant information is available at the right decision level.
Figure 3 shows the communication relations that are likely to take place among the participating entities. This diagram
is inspired from TS 102 181 [i.2] and focuses on satellite communication aspects. Other satellite services like Earth
observation are not explicitly depicted.
The entities are dispatched on two areas: the disaster area [i.8] including the operation area and the off-site area. The
distance from the disaster area and off-site area can range from tens of kilometres (for a small-scale disaster) to
thousands of kilometres (e.g. responders sent abroad in case of a large-scale disaster).
Several coordination task forces exist whose roles are to realize an effective and efficient integration of all disciplines
active on the operation area. While the present document mostly focuses on emergency telecommunications for
responders, it is worth noting that the affected persons (directly such as victims or indirectly such as their relatives) are
in need of communication capabilities so to call for help, communicate with their family, etc.
The means of communication links among entities display a wide scope of requirements pertaining to:
• The range: close range (i.e. hundreds of meters) from the operation area to the field control center and long
range (hundreds to thousands of kilometres) from the field temporary task force to the off-site coordination
task force.
• The motion of the communicating entities: mobile for rescue teams, semi-mobile for field control centers and
fixed for the temporary coordination task forces.
• The number of communication terminals and bandwidth needs.
• The nature of the communication: mostly voice in a group-call mode for the operation area and point-to-point
broadband data upward.
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10 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
The diversity of communication relations and their respective requirements hints the difficulty to establish a global
telecommunications network answering all user needs.
Administration
Citizens
authorities
Fixed hospitals, Temporary Emergency
energy & telco task force for control centres
operators, … coordination discipline a
Emergency
control centres
discipline b
Field
Temporary
task force for
coordination
Relatives
Field Field
emergency emergency
control centres control centres
discipline a discipline b
Operation area
Rescue teams Rescue teams
discipline a discipline b
Victims

Figure 2: Role model in disaster management
Administration
Citizens
authorities
Fixed hospitals, Temporary
Emergency
energy & telco task force for
Relatives
control centres
operators, … coordination
Internet
Social Networks
Field
Temporary
task force for
Field
coordination
emergency
control centres
Operation area

Figure 3: Satellite communication services for a typical disaster response organization
ETSI
Disaster area Disaster area
Off-site area Off-site area
0-10 km 0-10 km
10-1000s km 10-1000s km

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11 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
4.2 Disaster management and Information and Communication
Technology
ICT helps to make information exchange quick, easy and reliable. These properties make it possible to build systems
where the availability and circulation of information generates added value for the society. One can see the immediate
benefit of ICT on disaster management. Still, disaster management has also to cope with the challenges and entropy
inherent to the context of a catastrophe. Therefore, the complexity stemming from elaborate ICT systems may render
the applicability of these solutions more demanding or costly than with other -regular- usages.
The following paragraphs provide a list of applications (further than "simple" data transmission) relying on ICT and
being meaningful in the context of emergency response. For the reasons cited above, not all of them are currently
widely deployed.
Command and control: this application is the basis of disaster response and often relies on voice communication. It is
interesting to note that voice communication in the context of emergency fields displays requirements quite different
from telephone communications: push-to-talk and group calls are mandatory features. Point-to-point voice
communication is more common in higher level of the hierarchy (e.g. between the coordination task force on the near
field and the back headquarters).
Alerting and early warning: alerting is usually categorized as alerting from the authorities to the citizen and alerting
among authorities (alerting from the citizen to the authorities is addressed in the next item). Depending on the category,
different requirements may exist in terms of reliability, scalability and content of the alert messages. It is also important
to consider that an alerting chain may involve many different steps starting from the measurement of a physical
phenomenon (e.g. the level of the sea in open water) to notification of thousands of citizen.
Emergency call management and response dispatching: emergency call management (e.g. a 112 call centre [i.9] to
[i.13]) is a daily activity for fire brigades and emergency medical services. It is also often the first point of alerting when
a disaster strikes. For this reason, robustness and reliability of the supporting telecommunication system is a mandatory
feature. Emergency call management is often linked to response dispatching management that makes it possible to track
the location and status of regular response units sent on the emergency scene. At a certain extent, it may even include
information about the availability of specialized units in the hospitals that are part of the rescue chain.
Common operational picture (COP): consists in providing to operation managers (and field teams) a common and
up-to-date view of the situation. This common view includes map of the area that shows all necessary features such as
topological information, building descriptions or water/electricity supplies. It also includes the location of every
response unit. Other information, depending on the typology of the event, may include forecasting of a fire progression,
future extension of chemical spill-offs, etc. Finally, the COP can be augmented with different media coming from the
field such as video footages and pictures.
Telemedicine and emergency medical care: telemedicine in its widest accepted definition is the communication
between a medical expert in a remote location and a patient and possibly a field responder on the field. The objective of
telemedicine is to mitigate the negative impact on the patient health of the absence or rarity of medical experts on the
field. Telemedicine may be remote health monitoring, remote patient assessment and diagnosis and even remote
surgery. Telemedicine is not the only application when it comes to ICT-aided emergency medical care. Triage (the
prioritization of patient care during mass casualty incidents) is also a field of application that would beneficiate from
mobile computing and communications.
Supply chain logistics: supply chain logistics copes with the transport and distribution of goods (e.g. shelters, medics,
food) from supply platforms to point of distribution on the field. Swift transition of these goods through the customs
and effective planning of distribution (based on the status of the road network and the location of refugees) are two
examples of tasks requiring ICT.
4.3 Satellite-assisted disaster management
Space technology contributes to ease and improve disaster management practices by providing means for better
decision making, improved team communication and enhanced mission planning. Table 1 lists examples of services that
may be put in place during the different phases of disaster management.
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12 ETSI TR 102 641 V1.2.2 (2013-08)
Table 1: Examples of space-based services for disaster management
Disaster management phase Space-based service
(Earth observation, positioning, telecommunications)
Mitigation/prevention Remote sensing, terrain evaluation (Synthetic Aperture Radar, optic).
Preparedness Terrain mapping, early-warning.
Response Mass alerting; sensor network data gathering; response team and assets
tracking; navigation, indoor/outdoor localization with ground and satellite based
augmentation systems; situation assessment; PMR backhauling; PLMN and
PSTN backhauling; Internet access; VPN; terrestrial networks restoration,
augmentation and control.
Recovery PLMN and PSTN backhauling; Internet access.

The following clause addresses emergency telecommunications more in details, focusing on the characteristics and
constraints.
4.4 Emergency telecommunications
We define emerge
...