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SYNERGISE: Novel Toolkit for Improved Management of Natural and Man-Made Disasters

SYNERGISE: Novel Toolkit for Improved Management of Natural and Man-Made Disasters
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SYNERGISE for Improved Disaster Management

Internationally Funded Project to Develop an Integrated Toolkit for Improved Management of Natural and Man-Made Disasters Kicks-Off Today

Essen, Germany - 5th September 2023 – To boost the efficiency and safety of first responders during life-saving missions, the SYNERGISE team will develop a Novel Integrated Toolkit for Collaborative Response and Enhanced Situational Awareness (NIT-CRES). The toolkit shall improve the management of natural and man-made disasters whilst boosting collaboration between first responders to increase mission effectiveness and victim detection at highly challenging and complex incident sites. The international consortium is officially launching SYNERGISE in Essen today.

18 partners from Europe, Japan, Republic of Korea and the US will design, develop, integrate, deploy, test, validate and demonstrate the Novel Integrated Toolkit. It will comprise a multitude of tools and services required to:

  1. Boost situational awareness and sense-making by offering first responders (FRs) the means to autonomously and synergistically perform indoor and outdoor exploration of incident sites towards victim detection
  2. Receive at all times information about responders’ position and vitals as well as analyses of passive and active threats and hazards at the area of operations
  3. Upgrade collaborative response and incident as well as resources management by continuously sharing and updating the common operational picture across deployed teams, among the chain of command and between participating agencies
  4. Equip the first responders (FRs) at all fronts by delivering novel, affordable, accepted, and customized response tools and services as part of their operational assets.

For improving the collaborative response and enhancing situational awareness, the Novel Integrated Toolkit will deliver:

  • Cutting-edge, innovative and integrated tools featuring aerial, legged swarm of robots and snake like robots for autonomous site exploration and victims detection;
  • Advanced wearables for real-time vitals monitoring of first responders, gas/environmental sensing for potential toxics and explosives detection;
  • Advanced localisation systems to locate the first responders indoors and outdoors;
  • Augmented reality for robotic control, visualization and remote collaboration;
  • AI enabled synthesis and fusion of information for acquiring mission intelligence;
  • A rapidly deployable communications system to allow for quick information exchange and human-machine interaction for optimisation of exchange between devices and first responders
  • An interoperable Incident Management and Command and Control System to enhance multi-agency response and allow for effective mission deployment, resources and assets utilisation whilst enhancing situational awareness and sense-making at all times

These technologies will be extensively tested, validated and evaluated within a rich Testing Programme, in realistic settings, in which response agencies will be operating the tools and in turn shall provide recommendations for their development. Notably, a novel human-machine teaming framework will be followed to allow seamless embedment of new and novel technologies in the users’ operations.

Equipping First Responders with Tools that Enhance their Speed and Safety

“SYNERGISE seeks to match the operational needs of search and rescue teams with current technological capabilities”, explains Sabine Lackner President of the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW). “First responders have practical experience on the field and developers the technological know-how. Through this unique collaboration between technical partners, industry, academics and first responders of various agencies, innovative technology will be developed to locate the victims more swiftly and with less risk for the people conducting the rescue operation.”

Evangelos Sdongos, Technical Coordinator of the project says “Saving lives and ensuring safety of those responding has always been the main goal in disaster response. With SYNERGISE, we aim to offer a unique combination of technological capabilities that effectively contribute to that. The technologies to be delivered in the project will provide unmatched capabilities to address the operational needs and procedures of first responders’ teams. This will enhance first responders’ safety, situational awareness, sense making and collaborative incident management.”

Multidisciplinary Team to Maximise Impact Collaborative Response in Complex Incidents

Besides first responders, the SYNERGISE team involves academic and research organisations that will provide leading-edge technology and small and medium companies that will develop key innovative components and commercialize the Novel Integrated Toolkit. First response practitioners will take care of the testing, training and validation at component and toolkit levels in the framework of a rich Integration, Testing and Validation Activities Programme. International relief practitioners will be involved as members of the project’s Advisory Board, responsible for technology validation and wider outreach to the relevant stakeholders and capacity building.

SYNERGISE stands for “A novel integrated SYstem of Systems streNgthening tEchnical and logistical capacities to ensure better Response to emerGencies by synergIStically addrEssing First Responders capability gaps”.

The project is jointly funded from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme; State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation from Switzerland; R2 Network from the United States; the Japan Science and Technology Agency; the Korea Ministry of Science and ICT, and the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute. The project started on 1st September 2023 and will run until 28th February 2027.

Project Partners

Practitioners:

Technisches Hilfswerk - Bundesministerium des Innern und für Heimat, Germany

Sodertorns Branforsvarsforbund, Sweden

Openbaar Lichaam Gezamenlijke Brandweer, The Netherlands

Centrum Naukowo-Badawcze Ochrony Przeciwpozarowej Im. Jozefa Tuliszkowskiego - Panstwowy Instytut Badawczy, Poland

Hellenic Rescue Team ATTICA, Greece

Industry:

ASTRIAL GmbH, Germany

SYSNAV SAS, France

ARTTIC Innovation GmbH, Germany

Wearin’ / Conextivity Group, Switzerland

Ethical & Legal Plus SL, Spain

R2 NETWORK, The United States of America

Research:

Tohoku University, Japan

Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Netherlands

Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zurich, Switzerland

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, South Korea

VIRNECT, South Korea

Centre for Research & Technology, Hellas, Greece

The Advisory Board is comprised of representatives from the organisations herein: National Resilience at National Fire Chiefs Council from United Kingdom; Estonian Rescue Board; Centre for Security Science at Defence Research and Development in Canada; United States Department of Homeland Security; FirstLink Research and Analytics in the United States of America; Italian Fire Brigades; Hellenic Civil Protection in Greece; French Police; Swedish Police

More information about SYNERGISE will be provided via website and social media!

Website and Social Media

Website: Coming soon

Newsletter: Register here

Twitter: @SYNERGISE_EU

LinkedIn: SYNERGISE Project

Project Contact

Project Office:

Amrita Choudhary,

ARTTIC Innovation GmbH

amrita.choudhary@arttic-innovation.de

Project Coordinator

Tiina Ristmäe

Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW)

tiina.ristmaee@thw.de

Press Contact

Verena von Scharfenberg

ARTTIC Innovation GmbH

verena.vonscharfenberg@arttic-innovation.de

ARTTIC Innovation GmbH has been advising research and innovation projects for more than 33 years. As project management and communication partner, we make sure that our projects run successfully and that project results and events are disseminated in the best possible way. ARTTIC is a subsidiary of the PNO Group, one of the largest consultancies for publicly funded projects in research and development. For more information, please visit www.arttic-innovation.de.

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