In a June 2008 report, the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) noted that among the leading causes of firefighter fatalities in 2007, stress and over-exhaustion ranked No. 1, while becoming lost or disoriented inside buildings was No. 3. From Aug. 4 to 6, more than 100 researchers from universities, government agencies and fire departments gathered at the Worcester (Mass.) Polytechnic Institute to discuss state-of-the-art of technology designed to address both of these critical issues.
The Annual Technology Workshop for Precision Indoor Personnel Location and Tracking for Emergency Responders, now in its third year, is the only national meeting in the field. Each year, it provides a forum for exchanging ideas and discussing challenges facing technology developers, as well as a showcase for demonstrating the latest innovations.
2008 Workshop Details
At this year’s workshop, keynote speakers Jalal Mapar, program manager for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, and Charlie Dickinson, retired deputy assistant administrator for the USFA, stressed the urgent need for technology that can continuously monitor a firefighter’s vital signs and quickly and accurately locate firefighters in distress.
Sessions focused on the advantages and disadvantages of various technologies being investigated for positioning and tracking, including inertial navigation, GPS-related systems, and radio-frequency-based technologies; physiological monitoring, including wireless sensors and medical vests; and communications.
Several companies and university labs demonstrated their technologies during the second day of the workshop. Among these were TRX Systems Inc., which displayed the TRX Sentinel inertial navigation and health monitoring system; L-3 Communications, with its Advanced 3-D Locator system, based on a wireless sensor network architecture; and the Advanced Network Technologies Division of NIST, which demonstrated its real-time deployment of multihop relays for communication range extension.
The final day of the workshop was reserved for testing of location and physiological monitoring systems under realistic conditions. The tests used a scenario devised and executed by the Worcester (Mass.) Fire Department (WFD), in which a search team entered WPI’s Atwater Kent Laboratories building to look for a lost and unresponsive firefighter. The firefighters were aided, in turn, by five different systems: Pathfinder, an indoor ultrasound navigation system from Summit Safety Inc.; the Mobile Response Command System, an inertial navigation system developed by ENSCO; the Draeger FRT 1000 Tracker Firefighter and Exit Device, a homing system from Draeger Safety Inc.; and two systems developed by WPI researchers.
Institute Innovations
The WPI systems fared particularly well. The Combined Location and Physiological Status Monitoring System, which uses advanced radio and radar technologies for precise 3D location and tracking, and a WPI-developed wireless pulse oximeter and a sensor vest developed by Foster Miller Inc. for physiological monitoring, led the search team directly to the firefighter. The WFD representatives said the system would have allowed the search team to reach the firefighter in one session, without the need to refresh their air packs. The Mantenna, a radio-frequency homing device, not only led the search team to the right room, but to the best door to enter to reach the firefighter.
Workshop organizer James Duckworth, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at WPI, said the presentations and demonstrations made clear that the field of indoor position location has advanced considerably over the past few years, with several systems (including WPI’s) having advanced to the point where commercialization could be only a few years off. He said the recent emphasis on integrating physiological monitoring into the tracking systems will ultimately give fire departments tools that can help them do their jobs more effectively while protecting the lives of their firefighters.
More details on the 2008 workshop can be found at www.ece.wpi.edu/Research/PPL/Workshops/2008new.
