| Acronym: I-Garment |
| Main Objective: Today’s cities present us with diverse and profound problems such as unsustainable demographic growth, lack of space, growth of the suburbs, air pollution, terrorism and growth of nomad and homeless population, leading to an increase in the lack of safety amongst all those living in it. Also, the constant tendency to miniaturize technology has largely insured the presence of mobile computing in the daily lives of ordinary citizens over the past few years. The ubiquitous presence of cell phones and PDA’s are clearly representative of this and very soon these devices will be used for remote computing thanks to more powerful microprocessors and the expansion of their sound and graphic possibilities. Since these devices have become such an integral part of users’ daily routines, it is only natural that these systems should eventually be integrated into people’s clothing. The technological advances in equipments for the new generation of workers, namely those serving as Civil Protection agents, will naturally lead to the integration of these technologies into their garments, resulting in a more efficient disaster management and an increased safety for them. These equipments are now required to have means of protection against many different types of threats and, at the same time, guaranteeing a minimum time of survival in adverse conditions for an amount of time reasonable enough as to allow for his/her evacuation of the site. In the future, it will be also common for officers to keep track of their men in the field in real-time and maintain a continuous link with them for exchanging information and issue specific instructions accompanied by the necessary visual data. In practice, taking into account the needs of Civil Protection workers, there will have to be an integration of all these functionalities into their individual equipment in order to build a single system, portable and lightweight in order to allow for normal movement and operation. All the functionalities of these new uniforms must be the outcome of a discussion over issues such as comfort, safety, communication and information transfer between peers, with the ultimate goal of developing individual uniforms in order to meet the needs of a potentially large market of policemen, firemen and mobile rescue teams. |
| Reference: |
| Funding: ESA-ESTEC |
| Start Date: 01-01-2004 |
| End Date: 01-04-2005 |
| Team: Nuno Miguel Gonçalves Borges de Carvalho, Mário Rui dos Santos |
| Groups: Radio Systems – Av |
| Partners: Y-Dreams, Miguel Rios Desginer, Protecção Civil |
| Local Coordinator: Nuno Miguel Gonçalves Borges de Carvalho |
| Links: http://telecom.esa.int/telecom/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=12843 |
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Associated Publications
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