An Overall First Responder Tracking and Coordination Framework

For professional use cases like police or fire brigade operations, a reliable self-localization is advantageous for the coordination of first responders (FRs). Self-localization is especially difficult in indoor scenarios where neither global navigation satellite systems’ signals may be received nor additional signals of opportunity exist for enabling reliable positioning. In this article, we propose an overall system that combines self-localization, communication of the FRs’ locations, 3-D building reconstruction or floor plans (if available), and visualization. The indoor navigation technique is based solely on inertial sensors and builds on a simultaneous localization and mapping technique. It is capable of using any information about the building layout as prior information for enhancing indoor positioning, georeferencing the positions, and finally, visualizing the results in a suitable visualization tool.