Wireless Transceiver Tags for Firefighter Immobilization Detection
Solution Overview
Problem
Firefighters face challenges in large buildings due to smoke-obscured visibility and potential structural instability, which complicates their ability to locate occupants and fight fires efficiently, often resulting in delayed responses and increased fire spread risks.
Innovation Solution
A wireless communication system comprising portable wireless transceiver tags attached to firefighters, a gateway, and a status controller that monitor firefighter activity and environment, providing real-time alerts and tracking capabilities, including heartbeats, temperature monitoring, and motion detection to ensure safety and coordination.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If firefighters manually search for occupants in large buildings, then they can locate and rescue occupants, but a great deal of time is lost searching while the fire continues to spread
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual mechanical search methods with electronic automated tracking systems. Wireless transceivers attached to occupants automatically transmit location data, and the system processes this information to identify missing persons, substituting the mechanical process of firefighters physically searching areas with an electronic automated location tracking and identification system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces wireless transceivers as intermediaries between occupants and the firefighting system. These transceivers carry identification data and location information, acting as mediators that enable the system to track and identify occupants without requiring direct physical interaction or manual searching by firefighters.
2Area of stationary object
If firefighters fan out to search large structures, then they can cover more area to find occupants, but the search is curtailed by structural instability and collapse risks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces physical firefighter presence in dangerous areas with electronic monitoring systems. Wireless transceivers and automated tracking continue to provide location information and detect occupant status without requiring firefighters to physically enter unstable or hazardous zones, substituting mechanical risk exposure with electronic monitoring.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary identification of missing occupants before firefighters commit to extensive searches. By using transceiver data to identify who is missing and where they should be, the system prepares search priorities in advance, allowing firefighters to focus on specific areas rather than broadly fanning out into potentially unstable structures.
3Productivity
If firefighters are deployed to attack fires from multiple directions, then they can prevent fire spread more effectively, but communication and coordination become more difficult in smoke-filled environments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements automated feedback systems that continuously track and report occupant locations, fire conditions, and team positions. This automated information feedback loop provides real-time data to all firefighting teams and command, maintaining communication clarity and situational awareness without relying on voice communication through smoke-filled environments.
Data Source
AI summary
A firefighter tracking system is provided for use in conjunction with a fire truck to track firefighters at the scene of a fire. The system a plurality of portable wireless transceiver tags each carried by a respective firefighter, an accelerometer within each of the plurality of portable wireless transceiver tags, a motion processor within each of the plurality of portable wireless transceiver tags coupled to the accelerometer, the motion processor processes information from the accelerometer, detects an immobilized state of the respective firefighter and wirelessly transmits information including a notification of the detected immobilized state, a gateway carried by the fire truck that receives the transmitted information from each of the plurality of portable wireless transceivers and a status processor coupled to the gateway within the fire truck programmed to determine and display a status of at least some of the firefighters at the location of the fire via the received information including at least the immobilized state of the at least some of the firefighters.