Long overdue:
New York City Adopts RFID Tags to Track First Responders
By: Amanda Vicinanzo, Contributing Editor
Homeland Security Today
09/13/2014 ( 4:38pm)
With the tragic events of September 11, 2001 in mind, the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) has achieved great success implementing a new technology using radio identification to coordinate its 14,000 firefighters and emergency responders.
"The events of 9-11-2001 revealed that FDNY did not have a reliable method to account for all members responding to an incident,” said FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Edward Baggott in a statement.
In response, David DeRieux of the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Space Systems—the Navy’s corporate laboratory—and Michael Manning of Manning RF, partnered with FDNY to invent a system to track firefighters who may be in danger through an active radio frequency identifier (RFID) tag carried by each firefighter.
"It's in a little sealed plastic—it looks like a little key fob, actually," said George Arthur, an NRL engineer who contributed to the project, in a press release. "They're positioned over the left breast, inside the bunker coat in a little Kevlar pocket that's sewn in there. And it just sends out a little ping every five seconds: here I am, here I am, here I am."
A radio receiver located in each of the response vehicles picks up on the pings and builds a table of identifiers. A program running on the mobile data terminal in the vehicle periodically quizzes the user on the information and then relays that information to the FDNY Operations Center in Brooklyn where a commercial modem projects the data onto a wall-sized display and archives the data.
“As soon as [the driver] turns the ignition on, this thing comes up,” DeRieux said. “When they get on the scene, everyone takes off, they all disappear. Then eventually they come back for a roll call situation, and the captain can tell instantly everyone is within so many feet of the truck.”
In developing the firefighter tracker system, the NRL worked closely with FDNY to garner feedback on the operational efficiency of the new system. The origin of the idea for the tracking system occurred through a chance meeting in 2002 when DeRieux recognized FDNY Battalion Chief Joe Pfiefer, the first chief to take command on 9/11.
"[Pfiefer] brings me into his office and he says, 'We've got a problem. We need a way to keep track of our firefighters. Worse yet, some firefighters, who become dazed and confused during an operation, may not make it out of the building, or they end up in the wrong area for roll call,” said DeRieux.
According to Arthur, FDNY requested a system that is “easy to use, reliable and cheap.” DeRieux turned to Manning, whose company already worked on RFID, for off-the-shelf hardware to keep costs low.
“The readers cost around $1,100 a piece in the quantities we buy them — that might come down a bit," Arthur said. "The tags cost about $20 a piece.”
Prior to the new system, each firefighter kept a paper “riding list” of personnel in his or her pocket and left a copy of the list in the vehicle when responding to an incident. However, September 11, 2001 demonstrated the need to keep an off-site record of personnel.
Arthur said NRL’s next step is to develop indoor tracking to track firefighters moving inside a building. "We have given them the piece that lets them track from the vehicle to the fire ground or the event," Arthur said. "If we could drop in a complementary piece, where we could track firefighters while they're in the building, which would save so many lives."
Earlier this year, the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) recognized NRL with its Excellence in Technology Transfer award for developing the firefighter tracking system and meeting a direct need at FDNY: the ability to know who is on the scene, where they are and whether they are safe.
“The active-RFID tracking system developed by the committed team at NRL is a stellar example of the ways technology transfer returns vitally important benefits to the nation,” said Dr. Rita Manak, NRL Office of Research and Technology Applications representative, in the FLC Awards 2014 publication. “It’s what we are here for; exactly this kind of collaboration. In this case, between a city that really understood the problem and had real-life experience and need, and our highly skilled and motivated technical staff.”
hstoday.us |
