On 1 – 2 March 2022 at the Police Academy in Szczytno took place pilot exercises and scientific-practical seminar of the project FASTER- First responder Advanced technologies for Safe and EfficenT Emergency Response.
On the first day, on the University’s training ground in Solidarności Street, simulations of searching for missing persons or persons hiding in difficult terrain were conducted by drones cooperating with an innovative system – Common Operational Picture (COP).
COP is a comprehensive mapping system enabling the management of forces and resources of various services cooperating at the scene of a special or crisis event. It is the result and heart of technologies developed within the FASTER project, in the implementation of which a team from our University takes an active part.
Through a series of tests before the meeting and during the exercises, the possibility of connecting drones with the COP system and using them for 2D mapping was confirmed.
FASTER project is implemented by an international consortium consisting of technical companies and security entities from EU countries and Japan. The results of their excellent cooperation based on mutual openness are various technologies for the security of first responders. COP system, animal wearables, smart textiles framework, Resilient Communication Equipment (ResCuE) were presented during the 2nd day for meeting of stakeholders representing security entities from Poland and abroad.
Exercises and FASTER seminar is an idea of the project team calculated to enable meeting of experienced security practitioners with specialists from technical companies. In this way, we give them an opportunity to present new solutions to protect health and life, both of those who save them, as well as the threatened.
The event was attended by: Central Bureau of Police Investigation, Metropolitan Police Headquarters Independent Counter Terrorist Subdivision, Border Guard, Fire Brigade, Provincial Headquarters of the State Fire Service in Olsztyn, Forest Guard, State Forests, Territorial Defence Forces, Brigade in Olsztyn, Police College in Szczytno.
The implementation of the pilot exercise on site was assisted by representatives of the Greek The Centre for Research & Technology (CERTH, https://www.certh.gr/root.en.aspx) and a fire brigade representative from France, Marseille.
Very important points of both the pilot exercise and the stakeholder meeting was the demonstration of the software and hardware capabilities of the SARUAV project (https://www.saruav.pl/index-en.html). This is a Polish research and implementation project, which has resulted in the development of software that, using AI algorithms, automatically finds and indicates the position of people or things that are in a given area. The material to be analysed comes from a photogrammetric flight using a drone.
