Wireless sensor networks in emergency scenarios

Abstract

In the project FeuerWhere we researched the use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in rescue scenarios by combining the monitoring of the environment and vital signs, as well as estimating the location of the nodes in a WSN.The goal of this project was to monitor vital signs, envi- ronmental conditions and positions of firefighters in a large indoor emergency scenario using a meshed WSN. The WSN consists of one node for each firefighter which transports the data to the mesh network and which is also connected to a Body Area Network (BAN) [8]. The BAN itself consists of several nodes placed into protective suits. The main requirement to all parts of the system is robustness against all kinds of extreme environmental conditions, like extreme air temperatures up to 800°C, extreme humidity up to 100% including condensation and wet walls in unknown buildings.We report on an experimental evaluation of the deployment of a prototype that addresses the concern of monitoring firefighters in extreme environmental conditions. This will establish the general feasibility of WSN in extreme conditions and show that precise indoor localization using radio runtime measurements is not affected by these conditions.