Let us tell you the story of “Malpi” and her adventures in France with the INGENIOUS project…

Malpi is a plush monkey that loves to engage in monkey business at home. Every day something is going on to her owner Lilou’s (five years old) happiness.

One day Malpi decided to sneak into a travel bag when no one was watching going for an adventure with the INGENIOUS project. Here you can follow the travel blog that was sent back to Lilou during the 1^st Full-Scale Exercise (FSX) within the project

Malpi was first discovered at the airport of Stockholm, hidden in the backpack. It was too late to go home now. Normally monkeys will have to fly as Live Animals in the cargo compartment in order to follow the IATA’s rules, however, being a plush monkey, it was no problem sitting in the cabin.

In the morning, a fresh cup of coffee was needed after a long day and night of travel.

At the training site, there was no time to rest, starting off with inspections of the Next Generation Integrated Tools being developed by the INGENIOUS project, a bit of reading of the info material was needed, this can be found here if you want to read some more.

One of the promising tools of INGENIOUS is the Smart Boots, developed by CyRIC, which is actually a pressure-sensitive insole that the First Responders have in their boots. It will detect if they are carrying heavy loads, or with the help of the gyroscope if the first responder is immobilized and has fallen. This way alerts can be sent along with the position to help improve safety for the first responders in the field.

In the project, several drones are being developed. Malpi helped to inspect the progress on the Multi-purpose Autonomous eXploring drone – MAX drone that is being developed by FOI. The drone is capable to fly autonomously, 3D mapping an indoor environment, and detecting victims.

Both the bigger drones (MAX and MACS SaR) of INGENIOUS are using normal high-resolution cameras along with Infrared cameras to be able to detect victims and other points of interest. Drones are meant to fly both indoors and outdoors, autonomously. As for cameras’ resolution, the MACS SaR has previously successfully identified an A3 nine-block QR code from 300 meters in height.

 As seen, even plush monkeys can be detected through the system as seen in this “bonus test”.

The INGENIOUS partner APHP-SAMU hosted the Full Scale Exercise in Villejust, France at a state-of-the-art training site for USAR and INSARAG teams. As such there are a lot of different areas that simulate earthquakes and destroyed buildings, one of which was a school building. Here Malpi found some fallen friends and trained in first response and first aid. Something had to be done to help the fallen animals.

Both the drones and the Augmented Reality (AR) glasses utilize QR codes to navigate and position first responders and other objects of interest. Help was needed to make sure that these were correctly printed for the test.

At the training field, there were a lot of interesting things to discover, especially a plane that had crashed into a building.

After the first day, a boat tour on the Seine was organized with some food and views of Paris in between all the talks about current and future progress in the project.

Second-day Malpi oversaw and participated in the 1st International Workshop on “Tools for the First Responder of the Future”.

In contrast to the first days of heavy rain, the actual test day was very sunny. Here Małpi is waiting for the tests to begin.

Małpi is comforting Bodo the Rescue dog from ISAR that did not like wearing the K9 vest with an integrated camera and voice communication with found victims. We are confident that this was a size and getting-used-to new equipment issue, the functionality was however successfully tested to work in the field. 

Before starting the Ambulance had to be inspected to have functioning equipment for the victims. Luckily, we did not have to use the AED, but if it was needed Małpi made sure it was up and running.

Patrik from SBFF is coordinating the first responders during the test to make it a bit more realistic, apart from actually testing and evaluating the tools, which is best done by firsthand experience of the first responders present during the days.  

In total 15 victims participated, that had to be found, identified by the tools, and then helped by the First Responders. At the tirage tent, the triage bracelet with color coding and app was successfully tested for transmission of information into the common operational picture platform COP.

Using the victims identification app the police (PSNI) successfully identified a “dead” victim on the first floor of the restaurant.

Malpi is taking a rest with the good friend Lynne from PSNI overseeing the exercise.

The Full Scale Exercise ended just before the public holiday in France and Malpi had some time to go on a proper French seaside holiday in sunny Normandy.

Lilou had been informed through daily updates on what monkey business Malpi was up to in France. After a week of absence from home, Malpi and Lilou were happily reunited.