Monitoring System Tracks Firefighters

Whether in a smoke-filled building, a tunnel, or a forest, WISPER tracks firefighters’ presence and health signs for up to 150 feet.

Despite the ubiquity of digital communications devices today, with few exceptions, firefighters still rely on 20th century radios, whose outdated analog signals have trouble penetrating debris and concrete. When a firefighter enters a smoke-filled building, tunnel, or forest, UHF radio or even a GPS satellite signal won’t follow. The firefighters vanish from the map.

 

(Top-left) A network of inch-square routers keeps signals strong around concrete and steel. (Center-left) When cued, a motor-powered dispenser will drop a WISPER node. (Bottom-left) A base monitors strength, reroutes traffic, and drops nodes. (Right) Firefighters can be warned if a dispenser is running low. (Photos courtesy of Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate.)

For this reason, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) 
Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is combining two previously developed heatproof and waterproof wireless monitors with a newly developed technology.
 
Working together, they could lead to a life-saving solution.
 
The first device, the Geospatial Location Accountability and Navigation System for Emergency Responders (GLANSER), crams a microwave radio, a lightweight battery, and a suite of navigation devices into a tracking device the size of a paperback book. 

Back at the fire truck, GLANSER’s signals are received and transmitted by a small, USB-powered base station plugged into a laptop. As firefighters move from room to room and floor to floor, the laptop animates their every step.

The second device, the Physiological Health Assessment System for Emergency Responders (PHASER), can monitor a firefighter’s body temperature, blood pressure, and pulse, and relay these vitals back to the base station. If a firefighter falls or faints, fellow firefighters can race in, quickly find him, and bring him to safety with the guidance of GLANSER.

GLANSER and PHASER transmit at 900 MHz—a frequency that can penetrate walls, given a decent-sized transmitter. But because of their portable size, the transmitters are extremely modest. Their signals, unless relayed by routers, could be stopped by a wall, or—in a wildfire—a wall of trees. That presents a  challenge.

A self-powered router that can take the heat is needed. S&T, consequently, is developing a tiny, one-inch square, ½-inch thick, throwaway router that’s waterproof and heat resistant up to 500°F. The Wireless Intelligent Sensor Platform for Emergency Responders (WISPER) contains a two-way digital radio, an antenna, and a 3-volt lithium cell.

HOW IT WORKS
Each firefighter enters a burning building with five routers loaded into a belt-mounted waterproof canister. If a firefighter steps behind concrete or beyond radio range, the base station orders his canister to drop a “breadcrumb.” The dropped routers arrange themselves into a network. If a router accidentally gets kicked down a stairwell or is knocked under a couch by a firehose stream, the WISPER network will automatically reconfigure. A handful of these smart “breadcrumbs” could be the difference between life and death for firefighters.

To extract the most life from the router’s tiny battery, WISPER uses a  simple, low-power communications protocol, ZigBee. ZigBee is tortoise-slow by design–trading speed for battery life, telegraphing no more than 100 kilobits per second (kbps). It is more than 99 percent slower than WiFi.

“Throw in smoke, firehose mist, stairwells, and walls, and you’re down to maybe 10 kbps. But that’s fast enough to tell an incident commander the whereabouts (via GLANSER) and health (via PHASER) of every firefighter in the blaze,” explains Jalal Mapar, WISPER’s project manager in S&T’s Infrastructure Protection and Disaster Management Division. “We’re not streaming video that needs a lot of bandwidth, just vital signs and coordinates.”

WISPER’s router, dispenser, and tiny USB base station were developed by Oceanit Laboratories, Inc., of Honolulu, and the University of Virginia’s  (UVA/ Department of Computer Science under an S&T Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

In March 2011, Oceanit and UVA demonstrated WISPER for S&T at a FEMA office in Arlington, Virginia. Simulating a squad of firefighters, three router-bearing researchers fanned out, dodging around corners, stepping down stairwells. In test after test, their signals stayed strong, even at up to 150 feet.
 
A final prototype of GLANSER in expected within the next three months and field trials involving a few fire departments (not yet named) are anticipated to begin this fall, according to Mapar, who says that a product could be commercially available as soon as next year.
 
Fire departments have also been involved in the evolution of this technology, noted Mapar: The Wailupe Fire Station in Honolulu, Hawaii, assisted in the initial testing of WISPER; the initial prototype of PHASER is currently deployed at the Redondo Beach (CA) Fire Department; and the Plymouth (MN) Fire Department participated in the initial testing of GLANSER.
 
S&T is seeking a private-sector partner to manufacturer the routers in volume. Once a commercial entity begins production, S&T’s Test & Evaluation and Standards Office will evaluate a sample product to ensure it meets the stated performance criteria and for consistency. It will also set industry standards so that other manufacturers will have set specifications for design and performance. 

For additional information, e-mail
st.snapshots@hq.dhs.gov.
 
If you would like to have a technology considered for this column or have any comments, please send them to maryjd@pennwell.com.

 

 

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