Henry Ford famously said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
By: Dr. Kathleen Kiernan, President of NEC National Security Systems, and Dr. Chris White, President of NEC Labs America
This quote goes to the heart of the combined mission and unique collaborations between NEC National Security Systems (NSS) and NEC Laboratories America (NEC Labs). Not only are the powerhouse research and development (R&D) organizations delivering advanced technologies supporting U.S. Government agencies and the Intelligence Community, their industry-leading researchers are also hard at work creating solutions for future threats.
Problems to Solve vs. Products to Sell
“There’s an extraordinary synergy between NSS and NEC Labs that drive us to build bleeding-edge solutions for problems that are unsolved right now,” says Dr. Christopher White, President of NEC Labs.
NEC NSS leverages 124 years of NEC’s rich history of innovation and service to the U.S. Government with scientific curiosity, a robust R&D budget, and flexibility to rapidly prototype custom solutions. U.S. Government agencies trust NSS’s technology to identify both current and emergent threats and recognize suspicious patterns in the noise of the data.
NEC Labs is the U.S.-based center for NEC Corporation’s global network of corporate research laboratories. The diverse research groups collaborate with industry, academia, and governments to provide disruptive solutions to complex problems.
"As an industrial lab, we bring together smart researchers with diverse perspectives and expertise, challenge them with hard, real-world customer problems, and the result is new technologies and innovations that can disrupt the status quo and change the world,” added Dr. White.
Did You Know
NEC Corporation invests an estimated $1.01 billion annually in R&D, holds 47,000 patents, and has more than 110,000 employees in 160+ countries.
Asu
“In the spirit of ‘asu,’ the Japanese word for tomorrow, we’re not simply solving today’s problems and safeguarding public safety in the present,” says Dr. Kathleen Kiernan, President of NSS. “Our teams are creating a safer tomorrow and a series of tomorrows. We’re thinking and innovating faster than the speed of threat.”
Streamlining Safety and Security with Optical Networking and Sensing
One area of particular focus is providing an early warning of potential threats to law enforcement and government agencies. Utilizing capabilities that see and hear a threat—including natural disasters and patterns of criminal activity—and deploying resources and capabilities immediately can save lives, and protect critical infrastructure.
NEC’s Optical Fiber Sensing technologies identify people, objects, and events in a wide range of environments. NEC combines world-class expertise in transoceanic fiber-optic transmission and machine learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) with advanced distributed fiber-optic sensing technologies to create a solution that provides unobtrusive, low-maintenance detection capabilities.
In addition, NEC Labs is leading world-class research into the next generation of optical networks and sensing systems that will power ICT-based solutions for years to come. From forward-looking theoretical studies and cutting-edge experiments to world- and industry-first technology field trials, NEC Labs delivers globally recognized innovation that looks into the future and translates it into present reality.
Real-world Solutions
One might think, “All this sounds great, but how does it help keep my community safe?” Great question. One real-world example of the efficiencies of optical networking and sensing is roadway monitoring. By placing a fiber sensing box connected to underground fiber running the length of the road, you can monitor a 100-kilometer roadway! With that single system, the location of each vehicle can be detected, along with their speed, weight, how much noise they’re making and more—all to assist in identifying accidents and anticipating threats to public safety – and in real-time.
Compare optical networking and sensing with traditional traffic cameras. Approximately 1,000 cameras would be required to monitor that same 100-kilometer roadway. Those cameras need power, wired or wireless network link, plus synchronization of images being captured.
NEC’s advanced optical networking and sensing yields not only greater monitoring capabilities to enable faster response times, but the technology also offers substantial cost management and operational efficiency.
“The powerful collaboration between NSS and NEC Labs is taking public safety and security to a new level of innovation,” adds Dr. Kiernan. “We embrace new ideas and input from myriad businesses and viewpoints, driving us to discover dual-use capabilities and new use cases. There’s no question our commitment to ethical and moral values and our dedication to excellence has earned the trust of the Intelligence Community and government agencies. We are always mission focused and driven to provide solutions to those on the front lines, virtual and physical of emergent threat.”
To learn more about NEC National Security Systems’ advanced security solutions, please visit necnss.com.
For more information about NEC Laboratories America, please visit NEC-Labs.com.