• Hardware
• Software
• Applications
• • Healthcare
  • Emergency response
  • • Objectives of the user tests
    • Participants in the tests
    • Task scenario
    • Experiment setup
    • Testing methodology and procedure
    • Data collection and analysis
    • Results
  • Maintenance
  • Production

The presented studies have delivered a quite detailed understanding of current work practices concerning indoor-navigation under poor visibility and have indicated potential impact of technological navigation support on these practices. In terms of technology, several components have been positively tested for defined aspects of their functionality. The full integration of these components in to one system that can deliver these functionalities during realistic trainings exercises is the subject for the next phase. The virtual simulations have provided valuable insights for the design of the interfaces that will be used for this integrated system.

Evaluation of wearable system components
The focus of the first prototype lay not on product design that is to be evaluated in user workshops but on a first technical integration of almost all system components. Based on our ex-periences with the prototype we are currently defining a more integrated system design in terms of size and integration with clothing. After this the second prototype of the wearable system and the PDR prototype will be evaluated in the coming period. Regarding the PDR extensive, free-motion tests with multiple users (including fire fighters) are planned for the coming period. Work on an improved implementation of sensor fusion algorithms, detection of, and compensation for, magnetic perturbations indoors and handling of shuffling and crawling are the subject of current research. 

Evaluation of electronic lifeline “LifeNet”
The electronic lifeline “LifeNet” is evaluated both in virtual reality and with working, physical prototypes. In July 2007 and early 2008 further virtual reality workshop with four fire fighters and training exercises at the training house will be conducted. The questions that we explore with this system is how the LifeNet needs to be deployed, what functionality the individual nodes need to have and how the processed information needs to be presented to the user for safe operation under the physically and cognitively difficult circumstances of an intervention. Because of the size and casing of the sensor nodes, they are currently still deployed by hand. But a device for automatic deployment and smaller ruggedized sensor nodes are under development.

Evaluation of ubiquitous electronic tagging concepts for spatial annotation
As already defined in the project’s initial scenarios, we also plan to provide the fire fighters with tools to annotate their environment, in order to support and enrich the process of spatial sense making that fire-fighters perform in reconnaissance missions. During such missions, fire-fighters could make annotations that mark the space with small units of information that are relevant to them in finding the way out, or to other fire-fighters that find these annotations at a later point. The annotations are produced by the fire-fighters using a non-obtrusive interface and can be stored in the LifeNet or possibly dedicated tags that are intentionally deployed (for example RFID tags). These annotations could than be read as soon as the tag enters into the range of the device. One goal for these studies will be to observe the appropriation process and to understand how simple contextual information such as space and annotations, when used by the users, can affect the practices of a community.

Design, development and evaluation will be conducted in an evolutionary, user oriented manner. Thus, several prototyping workshops are planned for the second half of 2007 and the first half of 2008.