An Integrated Approach to Communications, Automated Information Management, and Sensing for Emergency and Disaster Response

Project Summary

Recent events such as the attacks of September 11th and the Anthrax exposures of 2001 demonstrated the need for reliable, integrated and automated communications and sensing systems to support situation assessment and response to large-scale emergencies. This research effort contributes to three critical areas of technology that can be used to improve our nation’s ability to address these needs: reliable communications, environmental and physiological sensing, and automated information processing. Key to our research plan is an integrated development approach that includes algorithm development, simulation, hardware implementation and field testing.

• Project Leads: David Kotz, Susan McGrath, Daniela Rus (MIT)