Wireless sensor system guides urban firefighters
Mechanical Engineering Department students at the University of California, Berkeley, teamed with the Chicago Fire Department on Fire Information and Rescue Equipment, or FIRE. It is a research project to design wireless sensor networks that send data to a prototype, head-mounted display, or HMD, inside firefighters’ face masks.
There are three main subsystems to the project: the SmokeNet, the FireEye and the eICS. SmokeNet uses a wireless sensor network to track firefighters in urban high rises and to provide data about units’ locations, the fire’s intensity and individuals’ health status to an incident commander. It uses existing technologies from several companies, including Telos Corp.’s beacon platform, which consists of smoke sensors, temperature sensors and radio-beacon nodes.
Custom-designed smoke detectors installed in high-rise buildings will house these beacons, said Evan Chang-Siu, a fifth-year mechanical engineering undergraduate who works on FIRE. These detectors have red, yellow and green light-emitting diode systems to alert firefighters about pending perils. A red light indicates a room is dangerous to enter; a yellow light means the status is unknown; and a green light means it is safe to enter.
FireEye is the HMD portion of the project, which is installed into standard-issue face masks. The prototype currently displays data in the lower right corner of the face mask. That data includes an interactive floor plan with team members’ locations, areas of buildings with activated smoke alarms, an air-supply-status alarm and key building features, Chang-Siu said.
“A firefighting team can go into a building and know exactly where they are, what floor they are on and who else is in the building,” he said.
Students designed the HMD display in firefighters’ masks using SolidWorks, a 3-D design and analysis software. Marie Planchard, SolidWorks’ director of education, said the software lets students position sensors in the face mask in a virtual environment to first ensure the technology doesn’t affect firefighters’ visibility prior to building a prototype.
“Before they even build the product, they can ask firefighters questions about what they want included in the design,” Planchard said.
Chang-Siu said the team tests data transmission to the HMD using an ad hoc wireless network. A computer is attached to firefighters’ self-contained breathing apparatus tank or turnout coats to create a mesh network, Chang-Siu said. Packets of data are sent on 2.4 GHz radio frequencies back to the incident commander.
The ad-hoc system component consists of Moteiv’s Tmote Sky wireless sensing platform, coupled with the company’s Boomerang software that lets wireless sensor devices detect and report changes in the environment. Tmote Sky has a 250 kb/s, 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 -wireless transceiver and offers interoperability with other IEEE 802.15.4 devices.
Boomerang transmits data from Tmote Sky units pre-installed throughout a high-rise building to the unit attached to firefighters’ self-contained breathing apparatus. For example, it tells the computer which floor plan level to display in the HMD, said Moteiv CEO Joe Polastre.
“We use [the Tmote Sky and Boomerang] in conjunction to be able to send and receive critical data through an ad hoc wireless network, so a network is created by everybody talking to each other,” he said. “It works ‘brigade-style,’ passing a bucket of data to the next guy ….”
The final component is the eICS, an electronic version of the National Fire Protection Association Standards’ Incident Command System. The software runs on an incident commander’s laptop to help him or her orchestrate the scene and assess situations with more information and higher certainty, according to the university.
A prototype for public use is currently unavailable, and the project is still in the throes of the research and design phase, said Chang-Siu. However, it continues to receive funding for future advancements from the Chicago Fire Department, the Center for Information Technology in the Interest of Society and Ford Motor Co.
