Thales IPS demo –2 May

18 April 2008, 12:01pm

Following the successful EU FP7 Europcom project*, we are now ready to demonstrate this technology to the emergency services community and other interested people.

For many years Thales UK’s Research and Technology (TRT) facility has been developing ultrawideband (UWB) technology for tracking and positioning. TRT UK has become a leading expert in the use of frequency hopping UWB for high-range low-bandwidth applications. In particular, TRT UK has been working to solve the difficult problem of positioning and tracking without pre-installed infrastructure. This has many applications and may one day allow seamless tracking and positioning from outdoor to urban to indoor environments.

An important near-term application is for emergency services personnel in hazardous environments. Every day, firemen risk their lives in burning buildings with limited visibility or knowledge of their location. Outside commanders have even less knowledge
of the locations of their crews. This becomes particularly acute if a fireman becomes trapped or injured, or when trying to locate civilians.

TRT IPS gives fire services the ability to efficiently deploy their crews and rescue injured firefighters and casualties. It can also effectively locate casualties in a tragic aftermath. In this demonstration, you will see 40 firemen simulate operations in a burning building. You will have a commander’s view of the locations of all fire fighters within the fire training building and observe the interactions betweens commanders and crews.

What You Will See:

•A hands-on demonstration of TRT UK’s UWB indoor positioning and tracking system
•Two fire training scenarios of firemen within a burning building
•Observation of the dialogue between commanders and crews
•Projection of future UWB IPS capabilities

The Day’s Activities:

10:30 – Lecture Theatre: Arrival, Registration, Badging, Tea & Coffee
11:00 – Welcome (John Howard, Head of TRT UK)
11:10 – Overview of day’s events (William Forrest, TRT UK)
11:30 –Europcom project results. Technology brief, including a hands-on hardware familiarisation. What you’re going to see. (Dave Harmer, IPS Programme Manager)
12:00 – Lunch
1:00 – On bus to Marquee
1:30 – Demo starts – two scenarios. Hampshire Fire Service will provide live audio commentary. Tracking data on plasma screen. Tracking data and other docs notated and sent between ‘silver command’ in marquee and ‘gold command’ in lecture theatre.
3:00 – Return to Lecture Theatre
3:15 – Debrief and Q&A - by TRT and Fire Service personnel
4:00 – Coffee & Tea.

Directions: The Fire Service College is at Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire, UK, GL56 0RH. Detailed directions are available at www.fireservicecollege.ac.uk

www.thalesgroup.com

GeoConnexion