Enhanced interworking of LTE and wi-fi direct for public safety

Mission-critical communications for public safety (PS) is of significant interest and a very high priority item for various organizations such as national regulatory agencies, telecom service providers, network vendors, device manufacturers, and third party public safety service providers. LTE has been selected as the next-generation platform to support new mission-critical realtime broadband services to the PS community [1]. To address high performance and seamless user experience, LTE networks interwork with Wi-Fi for direct communication. Wi-Fi Direct provides the ability to create groups for efficient dissemination of information needed for critical communication directly between devices. In realizing LTE for PS, it is also necessary to provide enhanced interworking between LTE and Wi-Fi for adequate emergency group communication. This article provides an overview of the PS-related efforts in 3GPP, interworking aspects of LTE, Wi-Fi and its application to PS, as well as a mechanism to enhance the interworking between the two technologies to deliver an effective solution for mission-critical communication and applications.