Fire fighters and rescuers monitoring through wearable sensors: The ProeTEX project

The final generation of ProeTEX prototypes has been delivered in April 2010: it is based on two sets of sensorized garments devoted to monitor the health status of emergency operators working in harsh environments. This new release of garments shows several improvements with respect to the previous ones, and it is characterized by a major specialization to the requirements imposed by the different categories of end-users (Fire-Fighters, Civil Protection rescuers) addressed by the project. Each ProeTEX prototype is provided with a communication infrastructure allowing the real-time remote transmission of data recorded by the wearable sensors, and the presentation of such data to possible managers supervising the activities of the first line responders. After the delivery of the prototypes, an intense validation of the garments is being carried out both in laboratories, specialized in physiological measures, and in simulated fire-fighting scenarios. In such a context, this paper presents the main features characterizing the final ProeTEX prototypes and preliminary results of their laboratory assessment.