Sorprendete! OEM Italia!!

If you’ve ever driven in Italy, you’ll know that it can be a pretty interesting experience – just head to Rome for a heady cocktail of zipping Vespa’s, fast cars and narrow cobbled streets.

Responsible for policing these streets are the Italian military police force, otherwise known as the Carabinieri. The Carabinieri are smart guys (I’m not just talking about their uniforms) and have turned to Dell OEM Solutions Group to develop a very neat solution to some of their traffic-related woes.

Together with Intellitronika, we’ve been working on a pilot project with the Carabineer to develop a solution called E.V.A – Enhanced Vehicle Automation. The solution will help to minimise the amount of time required to perform some basic Policing tasks by using a Dell Streak to act as a command unit combined with some smart software and mountings to allow the Carabinieri more time to keep the citizens of Italy safe.

The unit within the car, or the officer’s hands, remotely sync with central information sources to validate information collected.  For example, checking an individual ID or a car number plate in a situation where a car has been stopped.  What used to take minutes to action now takes seconds.

In addition the system will translate voice commands into a number of operational functions – from controlling the vehicle’s lights and sirens through to dispatching geo-coordinates and routing requests. The extra automation will allow the Carabinieri to concentrate on whatever task is at hand (getting to the scene of an incident or pursuing a suspect) without the distraction of having to manually input commands.

Although still a pilot project you can see some Italian TV footage of the solution in action here:

(Please visit the site to view this video) (at 1.14 see the ruggedized Streak)

Underpinned by a private cloud running some custom-built software, this is a cutting edge solution which has the potential to make a real difference to the everyday operations of the Carabinieri and the citizens of Italy.

It is also a great example of the breadth of capabilities the OEM Solutions Group can put at its customers’ disposal, and the extent to which we can pretty much customise any product within our portfolio based on a customer’s needs. Normally its one of our OEM servers or a workstation that is powering a solution, but in this case it happens to be one of our tablets.

The OEM group in EMEA will be working closely with the Carabinieri over the coming months to further develop and refine this solution; we have a firm belief that similar applications of our technology could deliver tremendous value in all sorts of scenarios. Designers are constantly looking at ways of improving how we interface with technology, and while we’re not quite in Knight Rider territory yet, the Carabinieri are certainly creating a more efficient, connected and user-friendly vehicle for their officers.

About the Author: Paul Collier