With the growing threat of climate change and the consequences of industrial accidents becoming increasingly severe, there is a growing need for first responders professionals to have access to reliable and agile information management systems that provide broader situational awareness and a better common operational image.
To coincide with current trends, the RESPOND-A project aims to develop holistic and user-friendly solutions for first responders teams by bringing together the complementary strengths of project’s partners that are experts in 5G wireless communications, augmented and virtual reality, autonomous robots, remote drone coordination, smart wearable sensors, intelligent monitoring, geo-visual analysis and immersive geospatial data analysis, passive and active track and trace, and interactive 360° video transmission with multiple views. The synergy of these cutting-edge technological advances is likely to provide continuous and very valuable flows of data, voice and video information to first responders and their command and control centers. This will contribute to easily and reliably predict and assess various incidents and save lives more efficiently and effectively, while maximizing their self-protection, before, during and after disasters. To this end, RESPOND-A plans to train first responders to become familiar with the technological results of the project and to demonstrate their performance and effectiveness in the real world at the classified training facilities of certain project partners in hydrometeorological, geophysical and technological disaster scenarios.
The Fundación Valenciaport in collaboration with the Port of Valencia and together with the Local Police of Valencia will carry out a project pilot that will allow the validation of the technologies developed during the project. This pilot aims to complement the current self-protection plans in and around the port in contingency scenarios, disaster mitigation, as well as the search and rescue of people. More specifically, the pilot includes:
- The immediate evacuation of cruise ships through the support of drones, which carry advanced thermal sensors.
- The use of smart helmets and AR goggles by first responders teams to support the evacuation of bathers on shore, by extending their visual range in order to know, in real time: i) the location of other rescue teams (while monitoring the stress signals of professionals thanks to smart jackets), ii) the location and distance to the nearest spills of flammable liquids and corrosive substances to prioritize the help to bathers.
- Early diagnosis of injured people carried out remotely by medical first aid staff, thanks to the use of drones and augmented reality glasses. Early diagnosis of injuries will be achieved by connecting the reconnaissance drone with EMS personnel in real time.
- Identification of the source of the spill through IoT sensors.
