WPI Research is the research magazine of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It contains news and features about graduate research in the arts and sciences, business, and engineering, along with notes about new grants, books, and faculty achievements.
Issue link: http://wpiresearch.epubxp.com/i/229254
notebook > PROTECTING THOSE WHO SAFEGUARD US A NEW EXHIBIT at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., covers the history of navigation. In one section, the exhibit addresses the challenge of navigating inside buildings. Next to a full-size photo of John Sullivan, deputy chief of the Worcester, Mass., Fire Department, is a Plexiglas case containing what looks like an ordinary walkie-talkie. But there is nothing ordinary about the technology behind that clear plastic. In fact, it represents the product of more than a decade of intensive research by a dedicated team of WPI engineers who dared to take on a daunting technological challenge. The quest to develop a method for precisely locating and tracking people within structures, where the signals from GPS satellites don't reach, began after a December 1999 warehouse fre in which six Worcester frefghters died after becoming lost or disoriented. Alarmed at the lack of technology available to help frefghters do their jobs more safely, John Orr, PhD, then head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, joined with professor David Cyganski, PhD, and associate professor James Duckworth, PhD, to launch a research effort to meet this urgent need. Working without funding at frst (the feld was too new to draw the interest of federal agencies), then later buoyed by a stream of federal awards from such agencies as the National Institute of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Pioneering indoor tracking technology for frefghters developed by a WPI research team is featured in a new exhibit on navigation at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, below. The team continues to develop innovative technological solutions for the fre service, including a system, shown above, undergoing a test in the new WPI Fire Protection Engineering Laboratory, that will alert frefghters of the imminent danger of fashover. Emergency Management Agency, the team developed a pioneering system that uses radio frequency transmitters and receivers and complex algorithms to pinpoint frefghters in three dimensions. In recent work, the team has integrated the radio location system with inertial navigation technology to further increase its reliability and accuracy. Building on that success, Cyganski and Duckworth have addressed other technological needs of frefghters. With a major award from FEMA, they have developed a device that can detect the imminent onset of fashover — a deadly event which causes everything in a room to ignite at once. With an additional FEMA award they have developed and tested a device that will alert frefghters to the presence of toxic gases like carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide. Kathy Notarianni, PhD, professor and head of the Department of Fire Protection Engineering, has been a co-principal investigator on the fashover and toxic gas sensor studies. At every stage of the research, the researchers have worked closely with frefghters, particularly the men and women of the Worcester Fire Department. First responders have also played a vital role in a series of annual workshops on indoor location that Duckworth and Cyganski have organized since 2006. Funded in recent years by the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T;), the meetings have included demonstrations of prototype location technology (WPI's technology was part of the frst test in 2008; the 2012 test focused on the GLANSER, or Geospatial Location Accountability and Navigation System for Emergency Responders, technology funded by the DHS S&T;). The workshops have been widely credited with helping accelerate the development of technology for frefghters. In recognition of their pioneering research, Orr, Cyganski, Duckworth, and Notarianni received the 2012 State Fire Marshal's Award at the 23rd Annual "Firefghter of the Year" award ceremony at Mechanics Hall in Worcester. Presented by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, the award recognizes signifcant contributions to the fre service made by those outside the service. 8 > wpi.edu/+research