The project: The First Responders (FR) of the Future: a Next Generation Integrated Toolkit (NGIT) for Collaborative Response, increasing protection and augmenting operational capacity (INGENIOUS) funded by the European Union and the Republic of Korea in the framework of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, was officially launched in September 2019 and will run for 3 years, coordinated by the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems in Greece.

INGENIOUS is an international European project comprising 23 partners whose mission is to develop, integrate, test, deploy and validate a set of collaborative new generation integrated tools (NGIT), which will ensure a high level of protection and operational capacity to respond in the event of disasters. In the context of the covid-19 pandemic it would seem more urgent and necessary than ever.

Rescue operations in both small scale emergencies and in major natural and man-made disasters are undoubtedly more dangerous than in the past and the needs of first responders have increased. These situations require complex response operations involving cross-agency collaboration. But above all, it is of utmost importance to provide first responders with the very latest technology so that they may work safely.

UPF is one of the project partners. It will be responsible for natural language processing tasks. It involves the Natural Language Processing research group (TALN). Since its inception until August 2020, it was coordinated by Mireia Farrús and, now her work is being continued by Joan Codina and Leo Wanner, at the UPF Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC).

It is of utmost importance to provide first responders with the very latest technology so that they may work safely

“We must provide cutting-edge technologies to first responders at all levels, including communication services between teams from different countries. At Pompeu Fabra University we are developing a multilingual operations application capable of translating spoken communications between teams of first responders and helping them in emergency situations”, comments the team of UPF researchers involved in the project.

The ultimate goal is to immediately communicate the information collected at the control centres of the public security service and civil protection agencies in order to develop a common, integrated and coordinated operational action plan

The NGIT integrates robotic, IoT and augmented reality technologies for both first responders themselves and for the units accompanying them. Among other things, the system includes wearables, communication and localization components, sensors, add-ons delivering augmented reality features, smart flying and ground devices such as self-exploring drones, as well as multifusion and expert reasoning modules, web and mobile applications, social media “push” and “pull” messaging, etc. The ultimate goal is to immediately communicate the information collected at the control centres of the public security service and civil protection agencies in order to develop a common, integrated and coordinated operational action plan.

The first round of project laboratory tests has been carried out successfully

The first round of project laboratory tests has been conducted successfully and the tests focused on the K9 vest, the smart ground and flight devices, the field communication system, and the social networks application, among others.

The project consortium comprises 23 partners from 12 European Union member states and partner countries, as well as the Republic of Korea, a total of 13 countries. The consortium has a rich diversity of types of organizations, including six end-user practitioners (first response teams from all disciplines; firefighters, emergency medical services, civil protection, K9 units and law enforcement agencies), seven specialized SMEs and industries, nine research institutions and one organization specializing in legal, privacy, ethical and social, human and security factors.