On September 29th, 2021 a field testing activity for the INGENIOUS project took place at HRTA’s training facilities in Afidnes (ATC), Attica region of Greece. The INGENIOUS project is about ensuring a high level of protection and augmented operational capacity for First Responders (FR) working inside the disaster area.
When responding to mass casualty incidents all First Responders are faced with a number of competing challenges and responsibilities to take control of the situation and deal effectively and efficiently with the wounded and deceased.
When an accident occurs, it is very important to gather information about the situation. The INGENIOUS Helmet is being developed by our partners from KIRO to facilitate the collection of field information to assist First Responders (FRs) in emergency situations.
LIT#6 Victim triaging took place virtually on September 28, 2020, and was organised by ICCS in the framework of the first round of Laboratory Integration Tests (LITs) of the INGENIOUS project. The LIT#6 was conducted virtually, like all the rest of the same round lab tests, due to travel restrictions were in place during September 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Laboratory Integration Tests (LIT) are activities that shall help interaction among technical and non-technical partners to support the development of the various components.
One of the main items that support the INGENIOUS Smart First Responder concept is the Intelligent Uniform device that is currently under development by TEKNIKER partner.
Laboratory Integration and Testing #2 and #11 (LIT#2 and LIT#11) have been conducted remotely in November 2020 and May 2021, respectively, at Alpes Lasers (Switzerland) and Technische Universität Wien, TUW (Austria) premises with the purpose to show the progress made regarding the development of a fully fiber coupled gas sensor based on the concept of interferometric cavity-assisted photothermal spectroscopy (ICAPS). The mid-IR quantum cascade laser (QCL) developed by Alpes Lasers is an important component of the gas sensor to be developed by TUW.
The purpose of the Laboratory Integration and Testing #1 (LIT#1) was for the end users to test available functionalities of the INGENIOUS Augmented Reality Services. Due to the COVID-19 situation, a virtual meeting was set-up in October 2020 and remote demonstrations were performed with the device screen being shared and pre-recoded videos being played showing the available features in use. During this LIT, our partners from CS-GROUP introduced the Augmented Reality (AR) to the end users and what an AR application is. They presented, then, the selected AR devices (ORA-2 and HoloLens 2), the capabilities offered by each, and the considered roadmap for the release of the features. The demonstrations highlighted the key features relevant for the First Responder (FR) uses cases:
The wearable solutions of the INGENIOUS Next Generation Integrated Toolkit (NGIT) will be presented at the webinar titled “Sensors and Smart Wearables for First Responders” which will take place online on November 2nd 2021 between 10:00 and 12:30 CET. The event is the second in a series of open Webinars organised by our DRS Cluster project RESPOND-A, addressing new technologies for first responders.
During an emergency, the lack of information (provided by IT systems) and therefore situational awareness is one factor that leads to human error and disorganised emergency response. However, unfamiliar locations and uncontrolled conditions are not the most suitable circumstances for deploying extensive IT solutions, especially with high mobility requirements as those of First Responders (FRs).
