Technology
In the earlier days of computer-aided dispatching (CAD), many MDT's were custom devices, used with specialized point to point radios, particularly in applications such as police dispatching. While applications like taxi and package delivery often still use custom designed terminals, majority of CAD systems have switched to rugged ruggedized) laptops and Wide-Area Wireless IP communications, utilizing the Internet or private IP networks connected to and over it. Tough environmental conditions almost require rugged laptops which have received a MIL-810g rating. Panasonic is the industry leader in rugged laptops with large market share in Police, Fire, EMS and utility vehicles.
For many industrial applications, such as commercial trucking, GIS, agriculture, mobile asset management, and other industries, custom electronic hardware is still preferred. Custom terminals use I/O interfaces that connect directly to industry-specific equipment. They are usually environmentally hardened packages with power supply protection and robust memory file systems that greatly improve reliability and task efficiency. MDT solutions that are based on ruggedized consumer products or consumer available software will typically not have the life cycle duration expected in industrial applications, over 5 years.
Read more about this topic: Mobile Data Terminal
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“Our technology forces us to live mythically, but we continue to think fragmentarily, and on single, separate planes.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“Primitive peoples tried to annul death by portraying the human body—we do it by finding substitutes for the human body. Technology instead of mysticism!”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)