For the US Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) National Urban Security Technology Laboratory (NUSTL), working in Manhattan is business as usual. As the official Department of Homeland Security lab for testing and evaluating current and emerging first responder technologies, NUSTL thrives amidst the bustle of the largest U.S. city and has established deep roots with response agencies in the larger metropolitan community. What is more unusual (and exciting) is that the city recently became the main attraction, serving as a key driver for technology demonstrations held at diverse venues across the boroughs of New York City.

Over the course of a week in late July, staff from NUSTL and across S&T collaborated with several federal, state and local agencies for the 2022 Urban Operational Experimentation (OpEx), which also brought together technology developers and first responders to take part in demonstrations and evaluations.

Urban OpEx put seven new and emerging technologies into the hands of first responders so they could explore each one’s features, functions, and capabilities, then give end-user feedback to the developers behind these tools. While NUSTL data collectors captured that feedback for forthcoming reports, developers listened and asked their own questions, knowing that the observations and suggestions of responders could help them enhance their technologies and produce more field-ready devices.

The photos in this article glimpse the variety of city locations that provided realistic, urban settings for OpEx demonstrations. More importantly, these snapshots capture the rare but crucial moments when responder know-how and technology solutioning meet. They are snapshots of S&T’s mission come to life, peeks into the future of responder-relevant technologies poised to address high priority capability gaps. 

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