COLLABORATIONS

INGENIOUS: The First Responder (FR) of the Future: a Next Generation Integrated Toolkit (NGIT) for Collaborative Response, increasing protection and augmenting operational capacity

INGENIOUS aims to assist First Responders be more effective and save more lives during natural and manmade disasters and crises by exploiting novel technologies. INGENIOUS is developing, integrating, testing and validating a Next Generation Integrated Toolkit (NGIT) for Collaborative Response, which ensures high level of Protection and Augmented Operational Capacity to respond to the disaster scene. The NGIT will be provided at the service of the FRs for extensive testing and validation in the framework of a rich Training, Testing and Validation Programme – of Lab Tests (LSTs), Small-Scale Field Tests (SSTs) and Full-Scale Field Validations (FSXs) – towards powering the FR of the future being fully aware, fully connected and fully integrated. More information

DRIVER+: Driving Innovation in Crisis Management for European Resilience

DRIVER+ was a project funded under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission, whose main aim was to cope with current and future challenges due to increasingly severe consequences of natural disasters and terrorist threats, by the development and uptake of innovative solutions that are addressing the operational needs of practitioners dealing with Crisis Management. DRIVER+ had three main objectives: 1) Develop a pan-European Test-bed for crisis management capability development; 2) Develop a well-balanced comprehensive portfolio of crisis management solutions, and 3) Facilitate a shared understanding of crisis management across Europe. More information

FASTER: First responder Advanced technologies for Safe and efficienT Emergency Response

FASTER is a H2020 funded project that involves a consortium of  research, social and technical partners  and first responder organizations. FASTER addresses the challenges associated with the protection of first responders in hazardous environments, while at the same time enhancing their capabilities in terms of situational awareness and communication. FASTER will employ a set of supporting technologies,such as UAVs and UGVs for their mapping and transportation capabilities to increase overall situational awareness, deliver important resources and even offer firefighting solutions, resilient communications, as disaster conditions may disrupt and hamper communications or even prevent operational networking conditions, and technologies for companion K9 units and mini-UAVs for obstacle bypassing, improved inspection and navigational capabilities. Moreover, AR tools for improved situational awareness by making immediately visible, in-situ and in real-time, information that was previously unavailable or difficult to get, will be adopted. More information

CURSOR: Coordinated Use of miniaturised Robotic equipment and advanced Sensors for search and rescue OpeRations

The CURSOR project is developing mini robotic equipment and advanced sensors to assist in these operations. Specifically, their system comprises unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 3D modelling, and transportation of disposable miniaturised robots that are equipped with advanced sensors for the detection of volatile chemical signatures emanating from human beings. Information and data collected are transferred in real time to a handheld device operated by first responders at the disaster site. More information

FIRE-IN: Fire and RescueInnovation Network

FIRE-IN has been designed to raise the security level of EU citizens by improving the national and European Fire & Rescue (F&R) capability development process.
FIRE-IN addresses the concern that capability-driven research and innovation in this area needs much stronger guidance from practitioners and better exploitation of the technology potentially available for the discipline. This is to be achieved by practitioners more effectively coordinating on operational needs, on available research and innovation, on standardisation, and on test & demonstration and training.
FIRE-IN addresses these objectives through four main areas of activity: (i) the identification and harmonisation of operational capability gaps, (ii) the identification of promising solutions to address those gaps, (iii) the definition of a F&R Strategic Research and Standardisation Agenda (SRSA), (iv) the development of a concept for more efficient use of test & demonstration and training facilities.
The overarching result of the project will be a proven process for organising F&R capability-driven research based on a wide practitioner and research and innovation network. The network will be linked at cross-domain and cross-border level and will feed harmonised operational requirements (or challenges) into national and EU capability development, i.e. research, innovation, procurement and standardisation programmes. More information

Search and Rescue: Emerging technologies for the Early location of Entrapped victimsunder Collapsed Structures and Advanced Wearables for risk assessment and FirstResponders Safety in SAR operations

The S&R project will design, implement and test through a series of large scale pilot scenarios a highly interoperable, modular open architecture platform for first responders’ capitalising on expertise and technological infrastructure from both COncORDE and IMPRESS FP7 projects. The governance model of S&R will be designed to operate more effectively and its architectural structure will allow to easily incorporate next generation R&D and COTS solutions which will be possibly adopted in the future disaster management systems. The Model will also support a unified vision of the EU role and will provide a common framework to assess needs and integrate responses. The framework will enable supportive approach using a wider range of decisional support features and monitoring systems and will also give to first responders an effective and unified vision of (a) the dynamic changes going on during event’s lifetime and (b) the capabilities and resources currently deployed in the field. More information

ResponDrone: NovelIntegrated Solution of Operating a Fleet of Drones with Multiple SynchronizedMissions for Disaster Responses

ResponDrone is an international project co-funded by the European Union (EU) and Korean government, which is dedicated to developing and applying a situational awareness system in emergency situations, providing critical information and communication services to first responders.

The three-year project aims to develop an integrated solution for first responders to easily operate several drones with multiple synchronized missions to enhance their situation assessment capacity and own protection.

ResponDrone, which is composed of 20 partners from 12 countries, received €8 million from the EU through the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and an additional €300,000 from the Korean government. More information

RESPOND-A: Next-generationequipment tools and mission-critical strategies for First Responders

The main aim of RESPOND-A is to leverage First Responders efficiency and safety by introducing a joint technological and conceptual framework for maximal Situational Awareness in terms of boosting Early Assessment, Safety Assessment and Risk Mitigation capabilities together with the clear COP and the optimal management of operations at any scaling and complexity of disasters. More particularly, robust and portable 4G/5G Mission Critical (MC) networks and applications will be arranged to facilitate constantly voice communication and data sharing with commanding officers and other First Responders. Moreover, First Responders will have real-time access to important data sources like video from self-deployable drones, medical records, bio-data from wearable sensors, contamination level data, and victims tagging and trace information, in order to enhance their Situational Awareness. As more data become available, in combination with AR/MR intelligence and accurate indoor/outdoor localisation technologies, analytics will surface key information and present it in a way that is easy to digest during an emergency incident. Furthermore, an efficient COP will help First Responders to prepare and increases further their Situational Awareness, without distracting their focus on the task at hand. More information

SIXTHSENSE: Smart integrated extreme environment health monitor with sensory feedback for enhanced situation awareness

SIXTHSENSE is a multidisciplinary innovation and research action with the overall aim of developing a wearable health monitoring system with closed loop tactile biofeedback, that allows first responders in hazardous situations to sense their current health status. It will allow early detection of risk factors that could lead to rapid deterioration of health or operation capabilities of first responders, by leveraging predictive models based on multi modal biosensor data (e.g., lactate, Na, K, HR, temperature). As a team management tool, it will enable real-time monitoring of all deployed operatives, helping increase team effectiveness and operational safety.

To help accelerate the pace of technological advancements aimed at first responders, beyond the scope of the project, SIXTHSENSE will establish a novel research methodology for sustainable inclusion of first responders in a co-development process. More information

iProcureSecurity: Strategic Partnership of Emergency Medical Service Practitioners forCoordination of Innovation Procurement

iProcureSecurityis intended as a preparatory phase to define the needs for an innovationprocurement phase, the network however is sought to maintain a sustainablecooperation also after the end of the CSA funding, to advise other actionsbeyond the planned precommercial procurement action.  iProcureSecurityaims at creating a Pan-European Network of medical emergency teams togetherwith medical associations, research and innovation providers, medicine relatedmedia any other relevant stakeholders in order to identify and tacklecapability gaps and innovation needs to foster greater involvement ofstakeholders in innovation procurement. More information

INTREPID: INtelligent Toolkit for Reconnaissance and assessmEnt in Perilous InciDents

INTREPID aims to create a uniqueplatform, seamlessly integrating Intelligence Amplification and eXtendedReality concepts with unprecedented Smart Cybernetic Assistants and innovativedeep indoor Networking and Positioning capabilities, to improve and accelerate theexploration and assessment of disaster zones. The project will validate itseffectiveness in challenging, complex and complementary pilots to supportrescue operations in areas that are complex or dangerous to explore.

Alwaysfirst on scene, first responders will be able to immediately start operationswithout having to wait for specialized teams or for the zone to be fullysecured. When these teams arrive, the INTREPID platform will already have givenan invaluable headstart to First Responders, by gathering reliable informationand offering effective assistance. The result is an immediate and targetedresponse that allows faster, more effective and safer operations. More information