ResponDrone participates in PSCE webinar on new technologies for first responders
December 11, 2020
ResponDrone Project coordinator Max Friedrich from the German Aerospace Center-DLR took part in a Clustering Webinar on New Technologies for First Responders, held on 3 December 2020.
The webinar was organized by the PSCE (Public Safety Communication Europe), an independent EU based forum with a remit of working to improve public safety communications by facilitating platforms to encourage dialogue and mutual learning between research, public safety organisations and relevant industries.
The idea of the webinar was to enable the participants to become familiar with a variety of other projects in the field of first response, and to focus on the topic of end-user requirements (the process used, challenges encountered and findings), thus fostering a genuine opportunity for each project to learn from the experience of the others.
Apart from ResponDrone, another six projects from the field of rescue services/first responders participated in the webinar:
The webinar provided ResponDrone with an excellent opportunity both to present the project and to gain insights from other EU projects working in similar fields. After giving an overall project overview, Max provided a focus on end-user requirements. The methods used in ResponDrone to gather end-user requirements included literature research, case studies, interviews and surveys as well as a design thinking workshop.
Altogether the findings show that during large scale natural disasters first responders especially need real time, relevant and reliable information on the situation in the disaster area. This includes for example position and health condition of victims and first response units deployed in field but also the position and status of available resources, such as medical and food supplies. Predictive information on how the disaster is expected to evolve in the near future as well as its predicted scale and kinetics would also be extremely helpful and would ease and accelerate situation assessment.
Major challenges that were mentioned regarding the introduction of novel technology into the first responder’s operational workflow included the interoperability of information systems used by various stakeholders, the speed and ease of system deployment in emergency situations as well as the potential introduction of new roles on both tactical and operational levels and changing decision-making patterns.
