1. WPI Precision Personnel Location System D. Cyganski, R
WPI Precision Personnel Location System D. Cyganski, R. James Duckworth, Vincent Amendolare Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester, Massachusetts Advisory Committee Dinner, October 23, 2008

2. Position-Finding Technology for Emergency Personnel is a Critical Need
12/3/99: Six firefighters died in a warehouse fire literally within a few feet of safety in Worcester, MA.
9/11/01: A disaster of far greater magnitude, with some deaths in circumstances similar to the Worcester warehouse fire
NFPA: lost/trapped 3rd ranking cause of fatalities
Current emergency responder escape technology:
Audio alarms which sound with lack of motion
Homing devices (Ultrasonic, RF) becoming available
Cold Storage Warehouse, six floors, two joined buildings 88ft by 88ft by 80ft high, and 72 by 120 ft.
NFPA National Fire Prevention Association
PASS Personal Alert Safety System
Heart Attack (due to stress and overexertion), Trauma (struck),

3. WPI PPL Goal A location and tracking system which
displays locations, paths, and landmarks (exits, etc.)
for multiple responders
in 3 dimensions,
requiring no pre-installed infrastructure
and minimal setup
Must be transparent to users

4. The PPL Team (Past and Present)
Research Assoc/Assistants
Jack Coyne*
Hauke Daempfling
Jason Farmer*
Jason Huang*
Shashank Kulkarni*
Hemish Parikh*
Ben Woodacre
Vincent Amendolare
David Holl*
Vivek Varshney
Jorge Alejandro
Tahsin Hassan*
Ishrak Khair*
Tanvir Madan*
David Hubelbank*
Matt Campbell
Michael Moukarzel
Faculty
David Cyganski
R. James Duckworth
Sergey Makarov
William Michalson
John Orr
Technician
Bob Boisse

5. System Overview
Personnel Unit
Reference units
Commander Display

6. System Requirements Fundamental capabilities:
3-D location of each user relative to a chosen reference point
Relative locations among users
Graphical display at the incident command center
Graphical path information on all users
Accuracy: +/- 1 ft
Range: 2000 ft
Number of simultaneous users: 100
Future enhancements:
Physiological information telemetry
Integration with stored databases: geographic and structural
2000ft = 1/3rd mile – probably unrealistic?
200ft like Worcester warehouse OK?

7. Locator Operational/Physical Specs
New Transmit ranging signal/Technology
Up to 150 MHz spectrally friendly bandwidth
programmable waveform
Support 100 locators
Updates each second
Low power, long battery life, automatic on/off
Monitor and report environmental status data
Temperature, movement, diagnostics
Provide distress button
Small size, lightweight
Provide support for Physiological data
Mention 100 m range
Say that my work was primarily with locator
Mention how long battery life
Talk about concept drawing in terms of size and battery power

8. Prototype Mobile Locator Hardware
Acceler-ometer
Temp. Sensor
Distress Button
Micro-processor
Interface
to RF Hardware
RF Data Channels
Heart Rate Monitor
PC Interface
Distress Button
Acceler-ometer
Transceiver Module
PC Interface
Temperature Sensor
Micro-processor
RF Hardware Interface
Here you can see some of our prototype hardware,
At the top right here you can see the components in the system.
We’ve got a low-power microprocessor
That gets data from an Accelerometer to measure movement
And from a temperature sensor and the distress button.
It uses a separate radio module for its communication,
And of course it also interfaces to the existing RF hardware to be able to turn it on and off and provide synchronization.
We’ve also got a simple PC interface for testing and debugging.
You can see all of these components in this picture of the prototype board.
At the left we’ve got some pictures of how this might look in the final Locator device
You can see our PIFA antenna and how all the hardware would fit into this bottom section of the antenna.

9. Custom FPGA based Software Radios
RF Front End board
Analog to Digital board
FPGA Digital Controller board

10. Antenna Design and Testing
Several innovations have been introduced in small, wideband, near-omni directional, multi-polarization patch and base antennas
Patch Antennas
Concept for vehicle mounted base antennas

11. 2005: Outdoor 2D TDOA results
Our new multicarrier (MC) signal structure and processing approach theoretically provides high accuracy ranging data with low bandwidth and spectral flexibility
Outdoor tests proved that our approach could achieve high precision results with low bandwidth
Classic TDOA radio location algorithms were applied to ranging data

12. But Indoors is not like Outdoors
Steel building structure
Metal ceiling and floor decks
Every metal structure bounces generates a multipath component
By April ’06 we repeatedly demonstrated that the MC/classic method of radio signal and contributes another solution confusing location could not cope with high multipath indoor propagation problems

13. New end-to-end method developed
By June 2006 a new approach to radio location that uses the multi-carrier signal structure but abandons any classic component of radio location was created. Just in time for WPI’s PPL Workshop Demo!

14. First Annual Technology Workshop
Precision Indoor Personnel Location and Tracking for Emergency Responders
August 7-8, 2006, WPI
Featured Demos by many of the participants
First Public Demonstration of WPI PPL Technology

15. Through-wall/High Multipath Demo
Antennas on 3 sides WPI Civil Eng. Building – poor geometry
Antennas facing directly into brick walls
No system training information or pre-sited devices

16. Kaven Hall Geology lab test site
2006 Live Demo site was WPI Civil Eng. Geology Lab.
Steel Frame and concrete block construction with heavy equipment and metal cabinets.
2006 test achieved 1 m average abs. error using 30 MHz signal.

17. Spring 2007: Improved Signal Processing
60MHz BW
Mean Error: 0.37m
Blue squares show actual locations
Red arrows point to locator estimates

18. 3D Residential Building - Tests
16 by 14 m coverage

19. New band - 150 MHz BW/3D antennas
1st floor error: 0.72m
2nd floor error: 0.3m

20. 2nd Annual WPI PPL Workshop - 2007
Over 100 attendees
Presentations, demos, working sessions
3D WPI Demo

21. 2007 Demo: 3D Real-Time User Tracking
Walk/Crawl through 1st and 2nd floors of the WPI Religious Center
WPI Locator

22. Real Time Tracking/Physiological Display
Locator position display with color ID
Environmental temp and heart rate
Locator height display
Locator motion track with Kalman filter

23. DHS/FEMA July 2007 – June 2008
Fire Prevention and Safety Award: “Integrated Firefighter Locator and Physiological Monitor”
Test feasibility of location and tracking combined with physiological monitoring:
Monitor individuals, provide warning of harmful stress before a serious event
Locate these and others within buildings
Partnership:
WPI – Location/Tracking/Integration
Foster Miller – Physiological Monitoring
Globe Manufacturing – Mfg of fire suits
Worcester Fire Department

24. Physiological Status Monitoring (PSM) System
Monitors Heart Rate, Respiration Rate, Skin Temperature, Activity Level and Posture
Comfortable t-shirt form factor
Extremely flexible sensor platform
Designed for military to withstand rugged environments
PSM T-Shirt

25. Physiological Testing – PSM
Testing to confirm PSM data agreement with portable capnography and pulse oximetry systems
Subjects tested in FF gear mimicking FF activities
New short-range radio to wirelessly transfer physiological information from vest to locator
WPI Locator
Capnograph

26. Physiological Testing – Pulse Ox
Wireless pulse-ox device developed at WPI
Development support by USAMRMC grant
WFD requested addition of pulse ox so we can monitor oxygen saturation levels

27. New Locator/Health Status Display

28. 2008 PPL Workshop Demo in Atwater Kent: Harsh Indoor RF Environment!
Metal ceiling
Metal benches and cabinets
Mesh Windows
Metal backed black/white boards
Fire Doors
Metal studded walls – 16 inch spacing!

29. PPL Workshop 2008: Demo Day WPI PPL and other PPL systems demonstrated
Firefighters attribute WPI system with reducing search time to a single mission (one air supply)

30. Currently Funded Projects
Testing and Evaluation of First Responder Indoor Location Technology
U.S. Army (NSRDEC)/DHS
Micro-Beacon Tracking of Autonomous Systems (MTAS)
Honeywell Aerospace
Microlight Indoor Positioning
Raytheon Company

31. WPI Precision Personnel Locator
Thank you!
David Cyganski,
R. James Duckworth,
Vincent Amendolare,