Each year worldwide, hundreds of firefighters and in general first responders suffer injuries and some of them die because they can’t get out of collapsed or burning buildings, while similarly trapped and injured people cannot be easily detected inside a damaged buildings caused by different disasters (fire, earthquake, flood, etc.). Moreover, victims may be unconscious or in crucial health conditions without the ability to ask for help or even respond to the first responders signal. In the United States, between 1992 to 2001 and without including September 11 attack, an average of 25,000 were injured per year and 4,000 people died due to fires, ranking this hazard as the first one in number of deaths.
The project IDEAL SENSOR has developed a wearable wrist band device that can be used for indoor tracking for managing emergencies. The proposed system provides a comprehensive solution for indoor localization and healthcare monitoring.
The product is equipped with different subsystems which guarantee full functionality of the system in different disaster/emergency situations (outdoor/indoor) without relying on power, common communication networks (internet, telecommunication, etc.), GPS/GNSS or any other global positioning system. In detail, the system positioning has an accuracy below 1 m and it is composed of different body signal monitoring (heart rate and oximetry), communication modules (radio frequency (RF) transceiver, GPRS/GSM, OLED display. The tags that are tracked are wearable, and their size is compatible with a smart watch. The host station provides a graphical user interface to visualize the position and the biometric data of the subjects being monitored. A prototype has been developed together with a business plan to commercialize the product. Although the current prototype is better that the previous one developed and tested in a STM Nucleo-F401 board provided by STMicroelectronics, there is still additional work that needs to be done to make a feasible product such as redesign and customization.
