Mobile Support for Rescue Forces, Integrating Multiple Modes of Interaction
The SHARE project is intended to offer an information and communication system to support emergency teams during large-scale rescue operations and disaster management. At present, emergency forces use half-duplex channel walkie-talkie technology and are restricted to simple push-to-talk voice communication. All the status information, reporting and documentation for decision making are processed manually. After the introduction of the new service, rescue operations will benefit enormously from sophisticated multimodal interaction and on-line, onsite access to data services providing up-to-date operation status information, as well as details concerning aspects of the emergency, such as location and environment.
A film documentation of the practical use of the SHARE system in the field by the Fire Department of Dortmund is available below.
Film documentation
- Officers using the SHARE system in the mobile control center ELW 3
Specific innovations that are developed by the SHARE project include:
- Mobile system architecture design that enables digital, multimodal communication using Push-To-Share technology
- Robust speech and image processing under extreme conditions
- Interactive digital map service with 2D/3D maps and location-based services
- Structuring of required information using situation-dependent ontologies and multimedia data indexing capabilities
During the first year of the project a fully functional first prototype was developed that was presented at the first review meeting and at CeBIT 2006. In the second year the consortium started development of the second prototype that already comprises all services and applications intended for the final SHARE system. Also an evaluation phase of the first prototype took place during the second year which proved that the fire fighters show great interest in this new technology. The complete system was demonstrated during the second review meeting at the Fire Department of Dortmund integrated in the working environment of the fire fighters. The distributed demonstration took place in the ELW 3 and at the yard of the Fire Department with mobile devices.
The SHARE prototype was finalized in the third project period by implementing new functionality, integrating all components completely and improving the system robustness. A business model for the technology was generated. Most important and in the focus of the third period was the intensive evaluation of the final prototype the Fire Department Dortmund. In order to exchange knowledge within the community and to discuss research results, the international workshop Mobile Response 2007 (www.mobile-response.org) was successfully organized. Workshop proceedings were published by Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (ISBN 978-3-540-75667-5).
Project partner Loquendo received an award for there TTS solution at this years SpeechTEK event (see picture below).
- Speechtek Award 2007
SHARE offers five applications which are directly connected to the main instruments of operation management. They are: digital interactive map (MAP), Voice and Video communication modules (PTS Voice/Video), digital message forms (DMF), information retrieval module and, finally, interactive resource management (IRM). All communication messages (audio, video, text) are stored in a media archive and registered in the knowledge management system (ODS). These components are in the in the center of the system on back- end site. They support the documentation of information needed for operation management. The SHARE applications are used during an operation to fulfill strategic, tactical and operational tasks. Depending on the user role the applications are adapted to the roles requirements and restrictions.