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INGENIOUS is a 42-month EU project (ends February 2023) which aims to assist First Responders in being more effective and saving 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. 

A total of 47 tests and exercises have been successfully organised: 27 Laboratory Integration and Testing sessions (LITs), 18 Small Scale Field Tests (SSTs) and 2 Full Scale Field Validation Exercises (FSXs). Within the lifecycle of the project 18 INGENIOUS tools and components have been developed by 14 technical partners, and also tested and validated for their integration and effectiveness in real conditions by 6 End Users organisations. All 23 partners worked together to deliver innovative, affordable and reliable technologies as part of the First Responders (FRs) uniform and operational assets in an integrated manner, facilitating seamless and resilient interconnectivity and boosting awareness. 

The EU-funded INTREPID project aims to help first responders in this scope, by providing a platform that will improve the 3D exploration and analysis of disaster zones. This platform will be based on intelligence amplification and extended reality concepts, with smart cybernetic assistants as well as innovative deep indoor networking and positioning capabilities. Thanks to this platform, first responders will be able to immediately start operations without having to wait for specialised teams or for the zone to be fully secured.

The project has just completed its Pilot 2, thanks to a huge team effort. The conditions were smoke, fire, several areas. The result is a successful enhancement and integration of the different technical modules into the INMOS interface. All these modules will be improved for Pilot 3, with a particular focus on improving new UxV functionalities, as well as on training the AI to make it even more efficient.

RESPOND-A stands for Next-generation equipment tools and mission-critical strategies for First Responders. The aim of the project is to enhance the capabilities as well as the safety of first responders during the crisis response. To do so the project is developing a wide array of products and technologies that fall under 4 categories: AR/VR technologies, Sensors and Wearables, Mission Critical Communications Technologies, Drones and UaVs. The project is organising several training sessions and pilots, to familiarise first responders with the use of these innovative technologies and evaluate them in real life scenarios.

The project has completed its testing and evaluation phase with 3 pilots and 5 training sessions across Europe. RESPOND-A has also organised technology focused webinars and clustering webinars with several EU projects, to share knowledge and lessons learnt. The project will organise its final conference on 25 April in Nicosia, Cyprus. The event will provide a summary of the project’s achievements and allow visitors to discover the RESPOND-A equipment and technologies.

FASTER addresses the challenges associated with the protection of first responders in hazardous envi-ronments, while at the same time enhancing their capabilities in terms of situational awareness and communication. The project establishes a new approach for disaster response in order to improve Europe’s overall disaster resilience. Moreover, FASTER improves the disaster response and monitoring capabilities by providing first responders with a suite of core and supplementary tools to augment their situational awareness and, as a result, guarantee their safety as well as enhance their operational capacity.
 

FASTER provides innovative, accepted and efficient tools covering data collection, operational capabilities, risk assessment, improved ergonomics, resilient communication, tactical situation awareness and efficient cooperation and interoperability. Enhancing FRs capabilities in terms of situational awareness and communication; Establishing a new approach for disaster response in order to improve Europe’s overall disaster resilience; guarantee FRs safety as well as enhance their operational capacity.

PathoCERT project focuses on researching and demonstrating in the field, pathogen contamination emergency response technologies. The project lays in the intersection of emergency response, public health and smart water systems. When an emergency occurs, such as an earthquake or a flood, cascading failures can cause the injection of dangerous pathogens in surface water (rivers, lakes), as well as the drinking water systems. The overall objective of this project is to strengthen the coordination of First Responders in responding to these events, by faster detection capabilities and improved situational awareness and decision support tools.
 

The project has completed its 2½ years. Within the project, Communities of Practice have been established in 6 countries and more than 120 First Responders and stakeholders were directly involved in the design of the technologies. The developed technologies are now being adapted to be evaluated by First Responders and other stakeholders in pilots in Granada, Sofia, Thessaloniki, Limassol, Amsterdam and Seoul. 

   This newletter has been produced by ICONS in the context of the Horizon Results Booster services delivered to INGENIOUS (GA N. 833435), FASTER (GA N. 833507), INTREPID (GA N. 883345), ASSISTANCE (GA N. 832576), RESPOND-A (GA N. 883371) and PathoCERT (GA N. 883484), CURSOR (GA N. 832790). This product does not reflect the views of the European Commission.