Mobile Geoengineering: Extending the office to the field
Enabling Technologies
Mobile engineering conditions make for some special needs in terms of both hardware and sollware.
Providing computing for engineering/field workers bears Iitle resemblance to office mobility. Mobile
engineering is a by-product of the technical tools that make it possible. Deploying a successful mobile
engineering system requires four (4) key technical considerations: functional field hardware, wireless
communications networks, field-ready software, and core technologies.
Functional Field Hardware
Many hardware manufacturers are delivering field-ready hardware, especially designed to meet the
rugged requirements of the field-computing environment. Ranging from lightweight, thin-client PDAs to full-scale,
military-grade computers, a whole generation of field-ready devices is now on the market.
PDAs, availablein dozens of configurations, are gaining popularity for lightweight applications, such as
dispatching, crew monitoring and service-order scheduling. These thin-client devices won’t stand up to
data intensive applications like surveying and project management, but they are effective at capturing
simple text data and relaying that information back and forth from field to otice.
Pen-based computers have become popular for many field applications because they offer a more
natural way to interface with information-especially for field workers who may have little or no previous
computer experience. The pen is more natural than the keyboard and provides a better-controlled means
of data input, which can eliminate many errors. Pen computers are ideal for (but not limited to) repetitive
jobs, like inspections or inventories, for which forms can be developed that guide the user through the
data collection processing, eliminating errors and assuring that complete data is gathered.
Fully equipped ruggedized notebooks remain the preferred choice for the most complex of
applications, like surveying, on-site engineering or project management. With notebooks that can include
Pentium II processors, up to 128 MB of RAM and 6-GB hard drives, there’s almost nothing you can do in
the office that you can’t also do in the field-in immediate contact with the source of the information being
created. These systems can run full-featured versions of most office-bound geoengineering applications.
With appropriate replication and synchronization capabilities they can be deployed as fully integrated
clients in the n-tiered geoengineering systems architecture.
Wireless Communications Networks
Wireless communications are now nearly ubiquitous. There are few populated areas that are not well
covered by analog cellular networks. Newer digital personal communications systems (PCS) networks are
expanding at break-neck speed. The growing satellite uplink for PCS is also expanding and soon every
place on earth will be accessible by commercial grade wireless communications.
In the near term, bandwidth limitations make full-time connections and the delivery of large data files
impractical. That problem will change dramatically over the next two or three years. The market is so large
and so untapped that many organizations are working double-time to develop viable solutions,
Field-Ready Software
Field-ready applications must be designed to maximize ease of use and functional efficiency in the field.
They must be more task-specific, simple to operate and built to eliminate potential errors. After all, the
objective of mobile computing is to improve field productivity, not displace their current work with computer
tasks that produce little or no eficiency gains.
Most mobile geoengineering applications must be smaller, simpler and more task specific than their typical
office-bound counterparts. They will generally be modular applications that perform specific tasks, but fit
together as part of a cohesive whole interfaced to the host server.
Core Technologies
Certain standardized, core technologies have emerged that make widespread mobile computing viable for
the first time. In the long run, proprietary environments are unlikely to be the prevailing technologies in the
field. Instead, environments with broader acceptance and more common protocols like ODBC, JAVA, and
COM will be the tools of choice for mobile geoengineering development. These standardized
environments will make field applications less costly to develop, more flexible, easier to deploy and easier
to use. These core technologies include the Internet, Java, Windows and Windows CE, and other micro-operating
systems.
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