Brevard Community College - Multi Campus Routing Control System

Introduction

The county of Brevard in Florida is very large. While not very "wide", the county extends more than 70 miles North to South. Because of the geographic size of the county, Brevard Community College has campuses in Cocoa , Melbourne , Titusville, Palm Bay, and Open Campus including the Business and Professional Development Center and at Patrick Air Force Base and provide classes at Kennedy Space Center.

In addition, BCC has one of the most powerful educational television stations, WBCC TV68, which offers a full two year curriculum through television instruction.

Design

Large video routing systems serve the various campuses, smart classrooms, distance learning facilities and the broadcast operations. The most practical methodology for moving this information around is by the large microwave network the college maintains.

A remaining challenge was the control over the signal routing that used the microwave path. A practical example of this would be a professor at the Melbourne campus presenting to students at each of the other campuses as well as via broadcast.

Rapidly changing sources and rerouting the video and accompanying audio signals was very difficult.

Because of its expertise in distance learning and unique control systems, General Projection was retained to design and integrate a control system that would allow quick and easy changes of signal sourcing from the remote locations.

Generally this is accomplished via a data path on a fiber or microwave link. In the case of busy BCC though, the data paths were all used up. So General Projection designed a method of "riding" on the audio channel so that the relatively simple data commands that are sent back and forth would not require an unavailable dedicated data path.

By modulating and demodulating the control signals on an audio channel, General Projection was able to provide sophisticated routing changes simply with push buttons on remote controls very similar to those that would be used in a home TV system!

Success

Now the college system can concentrate on the lessons and presentations rather than trying to figure out how to change a signal at the right place at the right time.

Professors teaching a class that require a different source from a remote site simply press a button and viola! the source is in the classroom.

Whether a signal has to travel from one floor to another, from one building to another or one campus to another General Projection has the capability to control these complex routing requirements with simple and easy-to-use button presses.

In some ways, this system closely paralleled a larger project General Projection performed for NASA when we took control of their routers in Alabama from such locations as Cleveland, Ohio and Darmstadt, Germany. For more information on that project, click here.

For more information on signal routing and control design and integration or other educational multimedia communications systems, please fill out our Information Request form or email us at Solutions@genproj.com