NEON® Personnel Tracker DHS OpEx Case Study
Summary
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TRX’s NEON Personnel Tracker Solution provided seamless indoor and outdoor personnel location and supported improved real-time situational awareness for more than 40 first responders in a simulated HAZMAT incident hosted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) at the Port of Houston, Texas.
At the two-day Next Generation First Responder (NGFR)-Harris County Operational Experimentation (OpEx), TRX’s Personnel Tracker Solution as well as other emergency response technologies demonstrated their improved coordinated emergency response during a simulated HAZMAT scenario that included more than 220 participants from 13 Houston-area public safety agencies and 20 industry partners. |
“TRX was proud to help DHS S&T improve situational awareness during the operation by providing actionable real-time location of all the first responders, allowing for efficient deployment of resources to the areas of highest risk.”
- Laton Palmer, VP Market Development & Sales 
Grand Central Terminal Case Study |
Challenge
As of 2016, 81.7 percent of Americans live in urban areas, and urban responders have different technology needs and budgets than responders in rural areas. This statistic has led DHS S&T to partner with Houston-area public safety agencies, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the DHS Office of Emergency Communications to identify technical capabilities that could assist first responders at the scene of an emergency in these areas. Situational awareness, responder physiological health, patient monitoring, real-time location tracking, and enhanced communications were identified as priority items for improvement.
Situational awareness was identified due to the ongoing issue that public safety personnel (e.g., law enforcement, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and disaster response personnel) often work indoors, underground, and in other areas where GPS is denied or inaccurate. Knowing where personnel are located is essential for incident commanders to make decisions that ensure the safety of personnel, improve coordination within and between teams, and ultimately provide the best operational effectiveness. To obtain clear situational awareness, responder personnel need to understand the area in which personnel are operating and need accurate real-time location of personnel, even in buildings they are visiting for the first time. Responder personnel need an optimized common operating picture.
Situational awareness was identified due to the ongoing issue that public safety personnel (e.g., law enforcement, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and disaster response personnel) often work indoors, underground, and in other areas where GPS is denied or inaccurate. Knowing where personnel are located is essential for incident commanders to make decisions that ensure the safety of personnel, improve coordination within and between teams, and ultimately provide the best operational effectiveness. To obtain clear situational awareness, responder personnel need to understand the area in which personnel are operating and need accurate real-time location of personnel, even in buildings they are visiting for the first time. Responder personnel need an optimized common operating picture.
Solution
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DHS S&T held a two-day NGFR Operational Experimentation to address the priority concerns identified. The OpEx took place December 4th-5th at the Port of Houston, TX which involved 220 participants from 13 Houston-area public safety agencies and 20 industry partners.
DHS S&T hosted this OpEx to assess how commercial innovations, DHS-developed technologies, and existing first responder infrastructure could be integrated to improve incident response effectiveness during a real-world scenario. The DHS S&T NGFR program is focused on developing, adapting and integrating technologies to make first responders better protected, connected, and fully aware. TRX was selected to provide mission critical personnel location for the OpEx and showcased NEON® Personnel Tracker, a 3D mapping and location solution that improves operational efficiency, command effectiveness, and safety for industrial, security, public safety, and defense applications. Personnel Tracker delivers seamless indoor and outdoor location, including delivery of real-time 3D location of personnel operating indoors, underground, and in other GPS-denied environments. |
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Personnel Tracker Android UI
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NEON Personnel Tracker delivers location in both 2D and 3D and provides tracking and visualization of personnel in complex indoor and outdoor environments. Accurate tracking is accomplished using NEON's patented location algorithms which leverage all available device sensors including inertial, magnetic, pressure, light, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS signals (where available) to calculate location.
NEON is the first location solution to deliver the precision and seamless coverage required during mission critical operations in for first responders, soldiers, and security personnel, particularly in GPS denied environments. NEON is unique in the ability to use very small and low-cost sensors along with mapping algorithms that use inferred and known map & Terrain data to deliver accurate and reliable 3D location in buildings with little or no infrastructure installed. The experiment scenario included a simulated chemical spill from a ship in the port. This scenario allowed for testing technologies that included physiological monitoring sensors, GPS denied location tracking, HAZMAT sensors, smart alerting for responders and incident command, advanced data analytics, data hubs, next generation dedicated communications, and situational awareness dashboards. |
