Utilizing the ARAIG haptic suit to navigate firefighters out of hazardous environments

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The effect of climate change in Canada has grown with each passing year. Severe storms, floods, and, perhaps most importantly, forest fires, have increased in Canada over the past decade [1], [2]. When a firefighter runs into a burning area to save lives, they are safeguarded from toxic gases, heat, and burns by their protective gear; however, there is one hazard that their gear cannot protect against getting lost or trapped. Fires produce a lot of smoke and debris from falling material and structural failures. These situations can reduce visibility, block exits and prevent safe evacuation. Traditional navigation aids often fail in these situations [3]-[5], resulting in firefighters having to manually navigate out of dangerous environments. This research project will focus on the development of new technology which will take the guesswork out of navigating to safety in time-critical and stressful situations. It will provide a new integrated set of sensors [video, global positioning system (GPS), and light detection and ranging (LiDAR)], and path planning and scene reconstruction algorithms that can be integrated into current firefighter protective equipment. This new technology will provide the capability of autogenerating evacuation paths based on entry information collected via the integrated set of the aforementioned sensors. When prompted, the new algorithms will use the generated egress path and reconstructed scene and create a set of haptic instructions to safely guide a firefighter out of harm's way using the ARAIG suit technology.