Channel 16 - Land mine reporting (LMR)

Channel16.me LMR (Land Mine Reporting) is a reporting system for Explosive Remnants of War (ERW): Findings can be reported by text, audio, or photo messages to a central server. Additionally your findings/warnings are broadcasted to other users nearby - like a Walkie-Talkie.

Features of Channel 16 Land Mine Reporting

Users can launch the app, and instantly type in their finding: "Found a suspicious object, I think it's a land mine".
They can post a photo of the suspicious object
Often audio is the easiest way to report suspicious findings. Audio entry works like a Walkie-Talkie / Push-to-talk (PPT)
The messages are send to a central server including location (latitude, longitude, altitude)
The messages are sent to all other Channel16.me users in the vicinity as well, by real time messaging (!)
All other users can be seen on a Google map
All messages are stored on the server and can easily integrated with a backend server, like IMSMA (Integrated Management System for Mine Action)
The app is available in multiple languages: English, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Arab, Polish, Japanese, Indonesian, Portuguese, French, Czech, and Russian (all community translated, by users who like the walkie-talkie functionality of the app).

Channel16.me Land Mine Reporting is basically a Walkie-Talkie especially customized for Land Mine Reporting.

Channel16.me LMR is a Smartphone-based solution (as supposed to an SMS based solution), that offers many very useful features, i.e. that all reportings are sent in real-time to other Channel16.me LMR users nearby - to warn them, as well as showing others users on Google maps.

The solution could be rolled out for civilian use, as Android and iOS are combined on the majority of smartphones, as well as for the potential use by police and law enforcement structures in affected regions, as it has advances features like real-time messaging and maps.

Where does the name come from? Channel 16 VHF (very high frequency) is the most important radio frequency on the marine radio band. The "real" Channel 16 on real radio Walkie-Talkies is used to broadcast distress calls such as mayday, pan-pan, securite or other urgent safety messages.

This version has been built for Android. We have another version for iOS and the Web, based on the same Channel16.me (Application Programming Interface) API.

We have integrated our solution with Wearable devices (Pebble, Samsung Gear, and Google Glass) - see screenshots. The purpose of Channel16.me LRM on wearable device is to see recent findings of ERW (explosive remnants of war) and/or other users in my vicinity - when often both hands are occupied with doing other things.

What other developers can do with Channel16.me LRM?

Channel16.me is a very extensible/sustainable platform and can be easily extended by 3rd party developers (e.g. at a "Hackathon")

The Android client is on Github: https://github.com/pbreuss/channel16.me-LMR
Interoperability: even though the entry to this contest is an Android app, we developed clients for various platforms (Web, iOS). These clients can be demonstrated and used to extend the platform in the near future. All Channel16.me apps are able to share content with each other (AndroidWeb...)
We also developed a Channel16 Web system and an iOS version. This is not part of this submission, but can be presented and used for later work)
Clients can be built for other phone types (Nokia, Windows Mobile, Blackberry)
The server (hosted on Amazon Cloud Computing EC2) can be enhanced by additional location-based features
Developers can build clients for other wearable devices, like (Google Glass, Android Wear, Pebble, Samsung Galaxy Gear) using the Channel16 API (Application Programming Interface)
SMS Integration: The system can be easily integrated with an SMS based system. The SMS based system would be another client of Channel16.me LMR
The current test backend can easily be integrated with IMSMA (Integrated Management System for Mine Action)
Another extension would be to show all ERW findings and it's status on a Google Map.
Channel16.me requires a mobile network 3G, 2G, LTE, however, it can easily adapted for asynchronous use.
The app Channel16.me works by using commercial networks 2G/3G/LGE or Peer-2-peer technology if networks are not available. Peer-2-Peer means, that the app uses Wifi-Direct to locate other devices/users nearby and use them as broadcasting station. This way, messages can be distributed even if networks fail or are not available. Wifi-Direct can have a reach of up to 200 meters.
Channel16.me is based on open source XMPP messaging software.