Next Generation Automated Emergency Calls

The Internet of Things (IoT) potentials to transform our modern society into smart environments that facilitate living and boost all types of transactions are becoming more and more evident as the number of interconnections between the physical and the virtual world keeps increasing. Cyber-physical systems, wide end-to end connectivity and handling of big data are some of the mainstream concepts brought forth to materialise the IoT umbrella. Yet, emergency services, a domain of paramount importance to society, reveal multiple challenges for the adoption of applications that capitalise on the capabilities of smart devices and the interoperability among heterogeneous platforms. In this paper, we present the continuing work [4] on next generation automated (non- human initiated) emergency calls by specifying the pathway to implementation of NG eCall and sensor-enabled emergency services

Integration of Satellite and LTE for Disaster Recovery

Wireless communications are critical for public protection and disaster relief (PPDR) professionals during the emergency operations that follow natural or man-made disasters, scenarios in which both commercial and dedicated terrestrial networks often fail to provide the necessary support. The reason is threefold: they simply get destroyed by the disaster, they cannot sustain the sudden surge of network demand or they fail to deliver the necessary bandwidth and/or other QoS guarantees. Because LTE is expected to become the main wireless technology for broadband communication, a lot of studies have been devoted to assess its compliance for PPDR purposes and to find suitable architectural solutions able to meet mission-critical requirements. This approach is surely worthy, but it is based on the assumption that infrastructure-based terrestrial systems are reliable. As a consequence, in worstcase emergency scenarios appropriate guarantees can be provided only in the hypothesis of huge investment costs. Recent developments in satellite technologies are bringing the availability of non-terrestrial high performance channels, with better properties when comparing to LTE for what regards availability and reliability. On this basis, the paper proposes a network architecture based on the integration of satellite and LTE networks for both infrastructure-based and infrastructure-less scenarios. The proposal aims to provide field operators and people in distress with transparent accessibility, coverage guarantees and broadband performance when terrestrial infrastructures are lacking, and to expand their coverage, capacity and resilience otherwise

Education, training and technological innovation, key components of the ESTES-NIGHTINGALE project cooperation for Mass Casualty Incident preparedness in Europe

Disasters induced by extreme weather events and terrorism-related activities, causing mass casualty incidents (MCIs) in Europe, are expected to increase in the upcoming years. This challenging scenario demands a high level of readiness and coordinated multi-disciplinary response to reduce morbidity and mortality. The European Society of Trauma and Emergency Surgery (ESTES) is one of the 23 partners of the European-funded project Novel Integrated Toolkit for Enhanced Pre-Hospital Life Support and Triage in Challenging and Large Emergencies (NIGHTINGALE), whose primary objective is to promote the exchange in experiences and define the best practices among first responders. Additionally, the project promotes multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional efforts to achieve technological innovation that will enhance preparedness in MCI management. This manuscript aims to describe the challenges of MCI triage, the education and training programs for MCI response in Europe, and the technological innovation that may aid optimal response. These three elements were discussed by ESTES Disaster and Military Surgery Section members during the German Society for Trauma Surgery session at the ECTES 2022 in Oslo "TDSC(R) and beyond: ideas and concepts for education and training in Terror Preparedness ", additionally the manuscript describes the first steps of the cooperation between ESTES and the rest of the NIGHTINGALE consortium

An Integrated Toolbox for the Engagement of Citizens in the Monitoring of Water Ecosystems

The monitoring of water ecosystems requires consistent and accurate sensor measurements, usually provided from traditional in-situ environmental monitoring systems. Such infrastructure, however, is expensive, hard to maintain and available only in limited areas that had been affected by extreme phenomena and require continuous monitoring. Due to climate change, the monitoring of larger areas and extended water ecosystems is imperative, raising the question of whether this monitoring can be disengaged from the in-situ monitoring systems. Due to climate change and extreme weather phenomena, more citizens are affected by environmental issues and become aware of the need to contribute to their monitoring. As a result, they are willing to offer their time to support the collection of scientific data. Collecting such data from volunteers, with no technical knowledge and while using low-cost equipment such as smart phones and portable sensors, raises the question of data quality and consistency. We present here a novel integrated toolbox that can support the organization of crowd-sourcing activities, ensure the engagement of the participants, the data collection in a consistent way, enforce extensive data quality controls and provide to local authorities and scientists access to the collected information in a uniform way, through widely accepted standards

RANGER: Radars and Early Warning Technologies for Long Distance Maritime Surveillance

In this paper, we present a high-level view of RANGER, a novel platform that combines innovative radar technologies with cutting edge technological solutions for early warning, in view of delivering a surveillance platform offering detection, recognition, identification and tracking of suspicious vessels, i.e. capabilities that exceed those of current radar systems. The RANGER platform consists of two radar technologies, a novel Over-The-Horizon (OTH) Radar combined with a Multiple- input and Multiple-output Radar (MIMO) implemented exploiting the latest photonics advancements, a Uniform Communication Gateway (UCG) for seamless, secure and interoperable integration of radars and legacy systems, an Early Warning System (EWS) exploiting data fusion and deep and adaptable machine learning schemes able to automatically detect radar targets and produce early warnings, an Advanced User Interface (AUI) for visualization of the maritime operational picture, and a Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE) gateway adapter for sharing information with the CISE network. The RANGER system aims at significantly progressing the accuracy and long distance detection, identification and recognition rates as well as improving the provision of early warnings and alerts related to maritime operations, thus drastically improving the response and intervention capacity of related European services