In an emergency, knowing exactly where a first responder is can mean the difference between life and death. When a firefighter in a burning building fails to check in, how does the commander know where to look for them?

Public safety agencies face daily challenges in finding first responders inside large buildings. Yet there are no reliable methods for tracking them in these types of environments.

So NIST has partnered with Indiana University’s RedLab to develop technologies to address this. The goal of the First Responder Smart Tracking (FRST) Challenge is to create prototype devices that track first responders indoors. In the five years since the challenge launched, teams from across the world have developed dozens of novel solutions—some of which have been turned into commercial products.

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