Innovative and Novel First Responders Applications

The objective of project INFRA is to research and develop novel technologies for personal digital support systems as part of an integral, secure emergency management system to support First Responders (FR) in crises occurring in various types of Critical Infrastructures (CI) under all circumstances. Project INFRA will focus on innovation at 2 levels:

A. Create an open, standards based interoperability layer that will allow: • Full (voice and data) communication interoperability between all FR teams, their command posts and the CI site control centre • Full interoperability of FR applications in use by the FR teams

B. Provide practical and useful novel applications for FR teams, all integrated within the open interoperability layer: • Thermal imaging applications • Video annotation • Advanced fibre optic sensors • Indoor navigation system

Both the communications interoperability layer and the FR applications in INFRA are novel and go well beyond the current state of the art for the technology in use by FR teams. Unfortunately, due to historic and organizational reasons, communications and digital personal safety applications are currently fragmented and operate in “islands”, with only very basic cooperation between the different FR teams and the CI control centre; usually in the form of voice communications (sometimes even their voice systems are not compatible with each other). Each type of FR (Police, Fire, and Medical) has their own equipment and their own applications. In a similar manner, there is no standardization of CI sites. So FR teams cannot rely on a standardised environment that is common to all CI sites. This situation is quite typical in Europe and globally. Project INFRA will provide a major step towards a standard, seamless, effective and efficient FR environment, which will ensure interoperability with the CI control centre, will save lives and reduce the financial damages of catastrophic events in CI sites.