Improving last-kilometer navigation & transportation of emergency personnel, equipment and relief items in hazardous and challenging environments

Considering response operations and relevant tasks in an urban fire or wildfire, performance of first and second responders is dramatically affected due to the low-, or even zero-, visibility conditions.ForeSight will design, develop, integrate, deploy, test, evaluate and demonstrate a set of bespoke re-sponse tools and services, at the service of civil protection agencies (fire brigades, civil protection organisations and emergency medical), which ensures a catalytic upgrade when managing urban fire or wildfire.

These tools and services: a) effectively allow FRs to see unobtrusively through fire, smoke, fog and dust; b) boost situational awareness, tactical reconnaissance and last-kilometre logistics related not only to heavy equipment and emergency relief items delivery but also comprehending the entire route from start point of resources to entering and navigating to the “hot” zone; c) enhance decision and sense making of individual responders and teams from the onsite to the closure of an incident.

Notably, the tools and services delivered by ForeSight shall be evaluated against a rich tech-nology inventory created within the project that extensively analyses existing technologies supporting first and second responders in their immediate response to natural disasters, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.

Moreover, the ForeSight technologies follow by design privacy, ethical, security and legal constraints to expedite their inclusion in response tasks and their abidance to standard operational procedures.

Finally, a rich Integration, Testing and Vali-dation Activities Programme is followed– of Round Tables (RTs), Technical Integration Workshop (TIWS), Com-ponent Field Tests (CFTs) and System Field Tests (SFTs) – towards empowering collaborative response and han-dling of complex incidents to its fullest whilst facilitating implementation of most promising user-centred technologies in real-world conditions.