Abstract : Every year thousands of Europeans owe their lives to the
professionalism of the civil emergency services. Operating in
complex situations, often with imperfect information, operators
such as fire fighters, paramedics and disaster management forces
make split-second decisions that can literally mean the difference
between life and death. A series of trials under the IST's XMOTION
project is demonstrating the use of mobile applications in
emergency management so as to improve the safety and security of
both the public and the emergency workers themselves.
Mobile technologies are opening up many possibilities for emergency
services to access and use information in new ways. XMOTION's
Project Manager Christian Mentrup explains: "Emergency logistics is
an ideal application area for mobile technologies. Each of the
services tends to use different networks, which need to work
together. In technical terms, we call this interoperability. Plus
they need to work to a high level of location accuracy, short
response times and high bandwidth during peak demand. All of the
technical elements needed to achieve this are available - it's a
matter of putting them together and proving that it works."
XMOTION is trialling these technologies prior to their adoption by
service operators. "European emergency services are quite
conservative," notes Christian Mentrup. "That's understandable -
they need robust, reliable solutions and can't afford for anything
to go wrong. In XMOTION we're building a test bed to show the
end-users the usability and benefits from these innovative services."
For instance, one of the key requirements in emergency management
is for the control units to have constant contact with their
operatives on the ground. Controllers need to know where operatives
are, what situations they have to tackle, and where necessary
support them with specialist advice. XMOTION's mobile applications,
based on 2.5 and 3G networks, will allow a much richer exchange of
information than the current technologies allow, and in real time.
Three trial scenarios The trial focuses on three scenarios: emergency management,
teleambulance and transport surveillance, each of which raises
significant interoperability issues. Each of the trials involves at
least one end-user, who provides a test bed for gathering empirical
data on the performance and real-world adequacy of the diverse
wireless technologies being deployed. The data collected will help
demonstrate the suitability of mobile technology in safety and
security-related areas.
The emergency management scenario aims to reduce the time it takes
for fire fighters to respond to an emergency and to enhance their
safety once on site. "Most problems fire fighters encounter are
unforeseeable," says Christian Mentrup. "Therefore they have to
work very flexibly and tightly with other emergency services to get
all the information they need quickly and directly. For instance,
our solution enables the incident commander to access information
about building floor plans and stored materials via a PDA. We're
also trialling wearable sensors in oxygen masks that allow the
control unit to monitor the health status of individual fire
fighters. Another innovation is an interactive helmet with
augmented reality features, for use when handling hazardous
materials, that allows the fire fighter to call up additional
information directly."
Ambulance services use many different communications systems and
therefore are a prime candidate for interoperability tests.
Christian Mentrup explains: "The communication needs of paramedics
vary greatly depending on the situation they are in. For routine
calls it would be helpful for them to access a patient's medical
records, so as to make a full assessment of their condition. In
emergency situations they may need to transmit information on the
patient's vital signs back to the hospital or to receive consulting
advice from specialist doctors not available locally. All of this,
and more, is possible over 3G networks." The demonstration system
comprises video conferencing technologies, together with
user-friendly interfaces for paramedics and doctors, and wearable
monitors with digital transmitters.
In the transport surveillance application the emphasis is on
security and safety in the freight transport of sensitive goods,
for instance goods that are of a particularly high value or highly
inflammable. "In this set-up we have one or two cameras located
inside the cargo space of a transporter," says Mr Mentrup. "The
cameras are activated during an emergency such as a hold-up or an
accident and a video stream is transmitted via a 2.5-3G network to
the surveillance centre. The communication link between the vehicle
and the centre is bi-directional, so the vehicle's engine can be
cut out if anything untoward happens, such as a hijacking or the
vehicle leaves a predefined route."
A common infrastructure The partners have defined a common architecture for the trials and
developed four key components of the infrastructure, namely: mobile
middleware, location-based services (LBS) , multimedia streaming,
and the mobile application backbone.
In the case of transport surveillance, for instance, the main
technical challenge was to develop a reliable mechanism for video
streaming over a mobile 2.5-3G network and to integrate this with
LBS. LBS and Web services are also an important feature of the two
other solutions. Users access the services through PDAs, tablet PCs
or specialist hardy devices.
Next step...to market!
All three trials are being undertaken in Bremen, northern Germany,
using the 3G network that has being installed by commercial service
providers. Although the trials are still on going, and the main
lessons have yet to be assessed, end-users are showing a strong
interest. "The whole point of a trial is to demonstrate the
system's feasibility to the market, so it's essential to have
end-users involved," asserts Christian Mentrup. "The reaction so
far has been very positive and we're already negotiating with local
emergency services to develop the current trials into full-scale
pilots."
Subject Descriptors : Information processing, Information retrieval, Information
transmission
Subject Index Codes : Information Processing, Information Systems
Subject Class : IT, telecommunications
Remarks : Results Entry form
Collaboration Sought : Further research or development support, Information
exchange/Training
Sources of Support : CEC
Programmes : IST
Projects : IST-2001-36059
Project Title : eMobile Testbed For Interoperability Of Net-works In eLogistics
Contact Details
Contact Name : MENTRUP, Christian
Position : Project Manager
Department : Entwicklungszentrum Nord
Contact Organisation : T-Systems Nova Gmbh
Address : Am Probsthof 10
City : Bonn
Region : NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN
KÖLN
Bonn, Kreisfreie Stadt
Postcode : 53121
Country : GERMANY
Telephone Number : +49-4213-799472
Fax Number : +49-4213-799409
Electronic Mailbox :
christian.mentrup@t-systems.de
