Augmented Reality Smart Visor for Firefighters
Fire isn't the only risk firefighters face - toxic, impenetrable smoke and darkness add to the dangers and slow down their progress. Clad in heavy protective gear, firefighters may also be dragging a firehose behind them and carrying a thermal imaging camera to help orient them. An EPFL team is working on a smart visor that, combined with a thermal imaging camera, will help firefighters see what's around them in real time, even at night and in smoke. Their solution consists of placing a mini infrared camera on the helmet and incorporating a transparent screen in the oxygen mask. Thus equipped, firefighters see two images in their field of view: what their eyes see and what the thermal imaging camera records and displays in real time. This allows firefighters to move around more easily and avoid obstacles without having to interrupt the search process.
Transcript
00:00:05 We developped a system that allows firefighters to see in the dark and in the smoke. So it's a hands-free system that helps them work more efficiently in a safer way. There is a thermal camera that's connected to transparent screens, like this one, and that shows a thermal vision of the environment. It allows them to orient themselves very easily and also to find bodies and operate the fire hose in a much more efficient way than what they are using right now. The specific aspect of our system is that it's directly in the field of view. As it's a transparent display, you can see both the thermal image and what's behind the thermal image, and it actually gives the user a sort of sixth sense , the ability to see temperature.
00:00:51 We put a lot of effort into finding out which are the best colors to use in our system. Of course we use blue as a colder color and red as a hotter color, but we also find out that you really need to have some specific colors in order to work well with transparent displays. With our system, it's now always available the thermal vision, so he has no chance of actually missing a body on the floor or of not seeing a dangerous spot. So far, we have focused mainly on the user experience and we used standard components for that. But firefighters, when they go inside a building, they have a breathing mask which they put on their face, and end in the next phase, which we are starting now, we're going to integrate these displays inside a mask so they can use it in their in their normal work.