SAIC Demos DHS Unified Incident Command and Decision Support UICDS

July 2, 2009

Science Applications International Corporation has successfully conducted a demonstration of the Department of Homeland Security's Unified Incident Command and Decision Support (UICDS) project prototype technology implementation plan in an effort to help emergency response organizations share information more effectively. UICDS is sponsored by the Science and Technology Directorate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and is being executed through a contract with prime contractor SAIC.

UICDS enables police, fire, emergency medical and other response organizations to use incident management technologies to share information and provide decision support to help prevent, protect, respond, and recover from natural, technological, and terrorist events. The Virginia Department of Emergency Management hosted the event at the Virginia Emergency Operations Center in Richmond, Va., April 29.

"This demonstration illustrated how information can be shared through a diverse set of interfaces, data formats and networks using non-proprietary, open standards," said Chip Mahoney, SAIC UICDS project manager. "From long-standing applications like computer-aided dispatch and asset management, to more recent video surveillance, detection technologies, and situational awareness tools - the UICDS architecture enables the information exchanges that emergency responders need to help save lives, protect property, and minimize economic loss."

The demonstration integrated applications from 23 commercial, government and academic technology providers, showcasing how information can be shared among applications and the agencies they serve. During the demonstration, participating technology providers successfully demonstrated nearly one hundred real-time information exchanges.

"Despite all the efforts devoted to data interoperability in recent years, the 23 technology providers represented in the demonstration came to the UICDS program with virtually no instances of sharing information with each other," said James W. Morentz, Ph.D., director of UICDS Outreach. "This exercise points the way to a successful continuation of this government-sponsored, technology provider-driven information sharing across the full range of prevention, protection, response, and recovery."