Worcester Polytechnic Institute to host national forum on locating first responders inside buildings

Motivated by a 1999 fire in the Worcester (Mass.) Cold Storage Warehouse, in which six firefighters died within feet of exits they could not locate, and supported by more than $3 million in awards from the U.S. Department of Justice, a WPI research team has been developing precision personnel location and tracking technology that employs principles from orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), which transmits high-speed data via wired and wireless channels and integrates well into the radio spectrum, and super-resolution techniques as used in synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which can extract great detail from radar signals.

The system will employ transmitters worn by first responders and receivers located on emergency vehicles. The goal is an affordable system that requires no setup at the fire scene and that can precisely track up to 100 first responders in three dimensions, displaying their positions and paths on a screen at the incident command center. The technology will be demonstrated during the Aug. 6-7 workshop.

For more, visit http://www.ece.wpi.edu/Research/PPL/.

About Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Founded in 1865 in Worcester, Mass., WPI was one of the nation's first engineering and technology universities. WPI's 18 academic departments offer more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, management, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts, leading to the BA, BS, MS, ME, MBA and PhD. WPI's world-class faculty work with students in a number of cutting-edge research areas, leading to breakthroughs and innovations in such fields as biotechnology, fuel cells, and information security, materials processing, and nanotechnology. Students also have the opportunity to make a difference to communities and organizations around the world through the university's innovative Global Perspective Program. There are more than 20 WPI project centers throughout North America and Central America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe.