{"id":22936,"date":"2016-08-06T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-08-06T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=22936"},"modified":"2016-08-05T18:35:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T23:35:55","slug":"gis-center-at-apsu-uses-google-iot-grant-to-assist-volunteer-firefighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2016\/08\/06\/gis-center-at-apsu-uses-google-iot-grant-to-assist-volunteer-firefighters\/","title":{"rendered":"GIS Center at APSU uses Google IoT grant to assist volunteer firefighters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – For volunteer fire departments, the risks that come with the job can often be different than those of full-time firefighting units in major cities. In many small, rural communities, volunteer firefighters battle the same blazes as their full-time counterparts, often meet at the scene rather than all coming together from a central fire station.<\/p>\n

Because of the independent nature of volunteer units, it can be difficult for unit commanders to identify who is available to fight the blaze when they arrive on site.<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a>

Students at the Austin Peay GIS Center showcase how beacons can be used to show location on Thursday, August 4th, 2016. (Cassidy Graves, APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

The GIS Center at Austin Peay State University is constantly exploring ways to use technology to solve every day problems. The GIS Center recently received a Google Internet of Things (IoT) Research Award to pursue work toward helping fire departments keep track of their firefighters at active fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the \u2018Internet of Things\u2019 basically means is that it is technology in everyday items that uses the internet to communicate,\u201d Mike Wilson, GIS Center director, said. \u201cSo think of something like a thermostat that you can control from your phone, or a door lock that works with the Bluetooth on your phone to unlock itself. There are a lot of devices now that you can interact with using your phone or computer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do a lot of work with first responders, and last year, we were talking to one of an EMA director who was discussing emergency site control, and mentioned he\u2019d love to find a solution to better assist volunteer firefighters,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI kept that conversation in the back of my head, and when I saw this Google offer, the idea of using Bluetooth beacons came up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bluetooth beacons are sort of a 21st century version of a radio beacon or even a lighthouse. By constantly emitting a signal, that signal is picked up by a device designed to detect its presence \u2013 in many cases, a smartphone \u2013 which individuals or businesses can use to determine location, track customers or even trigger location-based actions on the device.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine you go to a Tennessee Titans game and you have their app on your phone,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cWhen you walk by the team store, they have a beacon set up that detects your phone and all of a sudden, you have an alert that pops up saying jerseys are 20 percent off. That\u2019s one use of this sort of technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working alongside APSU students Mason Cordell, Catherine James, Daniel Rumfeld, Jordan Taylor and Sam Gray, Wilson and his team began exploring uses for beacon technology that went beyond advertising. With the goal of helping volunteer firefighters in mind, the team settled on using the cost-effective technology to identify first responders are active fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to thinking we could take these beacons and maybe put them in a firefighter\u2019s coat,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cSome beacons have a range of up to 200 meters and they all have a unique ID to them, so if I had this in every firefighter\u2019s coat and I knew what each unique ID was and I had a detector, I could know exactly who is on site at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bluetooth beacons typically cost under $10.00 and can last up to two years before being replaced, meaning the technology is not out of the reach of even the smallest of departments. To utilize the beacons, APSU students have developed technology that can run on laptops currently installed in fire trucks, as well as apps for Android smartphones, that allow unit commanders to quickly access up-to-the-moment information on available responders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I know that Mike is assigned to Beacon A, and I know that Beacon A is present on the site, then I know that Mike is there and that makes my job easier as a commander,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cOne of the things we try to do at the GIS Center is explore technology solutions to serve the communities with which we work.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on this or any other projects, contact the APSU GIS Center at 931.221.7500 or wilsonw@apsu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – For volunteer fire departments, the risks that come with the job can often be different than those of full-time firefighting units in major cities. In many small, rural communities, volunteer firefighters battle the same blazes as their full-time counterparts, often meet at the scene rather than all coming together from a central […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[16990,23,2638,7207,262,28835,28837,825,28838,16134,19190,16295,28836,28834,28839,1919],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-5XW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22937,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22936\/revisions\/22937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}