Rescue operations in both small-scale emergencies and major natural or man-made disasters are undoubtedly more dangerous than in the past and the needs of First Responder teams have increased. The INGENIOUS project, funded by the European Union and the Republic of Korea under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program, aims to assist First Responders to 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 consists of state-of-the-art technological equipment integrated in the First Responder’s uniform, boots and helmet to facilitate seamless and resilient interconnectivity and boost her/his awareness. The advanced tools and services will ensure a high level of protection and augmented operational capacity, assisting the first responders of different disciplines (police, fire service, emergency medical units or civil protection) to combine their strengths and experience and respond to disasters effectively and safely. Advanced technologies are being developed for the accompanying K9 Units as well.

The NGIT is provided at the service of the FRs for extensive small and large-scale field tests and validations as part of a rich Training, Testing and Validation program geared towards powering the FR of the future, who will be fully aware, fully connected and fully integrated. During the lifecycle of the project will be held 3 rounds of LITs (Laboratory Integration and Testing sessions), 2 rounds of SSTs (Small Scale Field Tests) and 2 FSXs (Large Scale Field Validation demonstrators/exercises). Until today, the 1^st round of LITs has been completed as planned (M11 up to M15). In our project, we continue with the 2^nd round of the LITs and the 1^st round of SSTs under preparation.

The 1^st round of LITs consists of 9 tests where all components are creating the NGIT (Next Generation Integrated Toolkit). INGENIOUS aims at providing a cost-effective, modular and highly reliable solution for Collaborative Response, at the service of first responders, enhancing their protection and augmenting operational capacities. The components and services are categorized in three main sections:

• “Smart” First Responders
  • LIT #1: Helmet and the Augmented Reality Services
  • LIT #2: Gas
  • LIT #3: Uniform and Boots
  • LIT #4: K9 Vest
• “Smart” Devices in the air and on the ground
  • LIT #5: Field Communication, MAX, Swarm of MINs, Deployable IPS & Large-scale mapping
• Augmenting the Operational Pictures and FR Mobile Apps
  • LIT #6: Victims Triaging App & Victim Recognition App
  • LIT #7: Fusion Engine & Expert Reasoning and Worksite Operations App
  • LIT #8: Social Media App
  • LIT #9: COP Platform & C3 and the Multilanguage Operations App

Upon successful completion of the 1^st round of LITs and the submission of the appropriate deliverable’s milestone M6 INGENIOUS Toolkit’s Prototype 1 of tools and services conducted. To evaluate the LITs, evaluation forms based on system requirements and KPIs circulated to end-users to ensure the level of success. Evaluators are requested to check the status of the components and fill in the related sheets, by providing the evaluation & validation result per functionality/metric, a comment about the provided functionality and an indication about their satisfaction per metric.

Through the evaluation process by the first responders, valuable comments originated from their expertise from the field and help technical partners to gain deeper knowledge on how first responders operate and what tools currently use. The comments will be taken into account to prepare the 2nd prototypes of the components. All the systems of the INGENIOUS Toolkit will be developed in a three-iteration prototyping process, each associated with one round of LIT and one round of SST. System requirements are going to be delivered incrementally. The three versions are identified as follows:

• 1st version: To be evaluated in the 1^st rounds of LITs and SSTs.
• 2nd version: To be evaluated in the 2^nd rounds of LITs and SSTs and the 1^st FSX.
• 3rd version: To be evaluated in the 3^rd round of LITs and 2^nd FSX.

Stay tuned for more details to come!