The Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center has added a law enforcement partner.
AMRDEC's Strategic Development Office, the Von Braun Center for Science and Innovation and the Madison Police Department have signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to allow AMRDEC to work with the Madison Police and share information. It allows the Madison Police to test and analyze new product designs for AMRDEC.
"The CRADA allows the federal government and non-federal partner to optimize their resources, share technical expertise in a protected environment, share intellectual property emerging from the effort and speed the commercialization of federally developed technology," according to the U.S. Geological Survey's website.
The City of Madison has a population of more than 40,000 people and is just over 23 square miles.
"This CRADA is the first known partnership of its kind for the federal government and local law enforcement," Greg Pruitt, director of the VBCSI Strategic Development Office and technical point of contact for the CRADA, said.
"Obviously the partnership alone is phenomenal, but our collective thoughts are twofold: No. 1, develop wonderful cutting edge equipment for law enforcement agencies around the world; and No. 2, pave the way for future, successful, partnerships with the federal government and local law enforcement agencies," said Madison police chief Larry Muncey.
Forrest Ruble, director of AMRDEC's Strategic Development Office, agreed with Muncey.
"This CRADA was about first of all understand that first responders in our neighborhoods have needs that technology being developed by AMRDEC engineers could address those needs and then match those needs with the specific capabilities AMRDEC was developing," Ruble said.
If Jenny Hess had not acted on the potential she saw and ensured the first responders and AMRDEC technology developers met to determine where the common ground was, this CRADA may never have existed, according to Ruble.
One specific capability would be the test and analysis of the open architecture for semi-autonomous integrated sensors equipment, which is a miniature self-contained camera system that transmits a signal via a cell phone.
"The Madison police department will test our first 25 units and provide us with user feedback," Brian Harris, computer engineer with the Acquisition and Technology Division, Software Engineering Directorate at AMRDEC, said.
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