Research for Civil Security

14 NavIgatION aND lOCalIzatIONFeuerWhereNew sensor network helps fire brigades during fire-fighting operationsIn-door localisation: In case of an accident every second counts to send help to the right place (source: Feuerwehr Berlin)motivationDuring operations involving thick smoke, emergencyforces are virtually blind when they have toexplore buildings. Despite fire and smoke, they haveto develop a clear overview of the situation: Whereare the victims? Where are the other fire-fighters?Rescuing human life is a stressful undertaking andrescuers put their own lives at risk during fire fightingoperations often enough. That is why it is importantfor each fire-fighter involved to have a clearunderstanding of the overall situation and to adaptto constantly changing conditions. To that end, theFeuerWhere project is developing a wireless sensornetwork as a tracking system for emergency forces.Project description and goalsFor orientation purposes, usually only a roughlayout is available. The command and control postobtains its information from layout sketches andvia radiotelephony. The exact location and conditionof emergency forces can be determined onlyroughly based on the often fragmentary information.Fire-fighting thus represents an extraordinarilystressful situation for everyone in the operation.Although they have professional protective clothingand equipment, emergency forces are seriouslyendangered by conditions in the burning building.Here data on the location of emergency forces,their physical condition and current conditions intheir immediate vicinity could help the commandand control post fight the fire more efficiently whilesignificantly improving the safety of the emergencyforces at the same time.The system to be developed must allow for rapidimplementation as well as gradual expansion. Itmust also ensure a stable exchange of data – aboutthe location of participants and their immediatevicinity, for example – under operation conditions.In parallel to this, an additional sensor networklocated near the body will record the necessary dataon the physical condition of the emergency forces.All information must be available in bundled formin order to provide the fastest possible support tothe command and control post when making decisionsof vital importance.