Project HELP work plan has been conceived around the following overall strategy:

The specification of operational user requirements scenarios and overall system requirements will initially capitalise on related work done in other organisations and projects in Europe on the same area. This will be enhanced through the establishment of a User Advisory Board (UAB) consisting of a cross selection of users from as many European countries as possible. Scenario and system requirements will be validated by the UAB.

Feasibility studies will be conducted to determine potential design choices for network and spectrum sharing solutions. Conducted studies will consider and extend current state-of-the-art solutions in these fields in the context of standardisation bodies and related research projects. Analysed solutions will be discussed and compared attending to aspects such as existing technical challenges, expected gains and benefits, possible design trade-offs, current and expected standardisation and regulation support, etc.

Based on a solid view of the overall system requirements and the alternative solution approaches analysed for network and spectrum sharing, a system concept framework will be determined. The system concept will provide a high level view of the key features and correspondent functional building blocks of the envisioned composite emergency network. The system concept will be initially discussed with an Operator Advisory Board (OAB). A first completed description of Project HELP system concept will be discussed within Workshop#1 with representatives from diverse stakeholders, along with overall system requirements and considered scenarios.

A consolidated view of the system design will be further achieved by addressing a detailed analysis of the key management mechanisms that would form part of the envisioned solution. Hence, specific solutions for inter-system, intra-system and terminal management capabilities will be covered as part of the functional specification of the system. In addition, a techno-economic study will be conducted to assess the business value of the proposed solutions for stakeholders like public safety authorities, agencies and network operators. As a result, a consolidated system concept, encompassing both functional model and key related management aspects, will be obtained and presented in a second Workshop at the end of the project. Workshop#2 will constitute a key milestone to gain momentum and consensus building.

In parallel to the consolidation of the system concept, a clear roadmap will be established to drive future research activities to cope with arisen technical challenges. This roadmap will be the basis for the potential proposal of a large scale Phase II demonstration project aimed at consolidating the HELP system concept by developing specific solutions (functional specifications, mechanisms and algorithms) and assessing their performance and experimental validation.