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Saving Lives with RFID Technology

The nightmare call comes into the station—students in a nearby elementary school are being held hostage at gunpoint. With only moments to respond, members of the police force check their gear in mere seconds, cuffs, vest, gun, Taser®, and RFID tag. When they arrive at the school, select members of the force enter the premises, while one remains in the car to serve as a guide. Using RFID technology and the school's closed-circuit television system, the officer in the car watches the team on a monitor as they creep through the first floor hallway. The officer in the car switches screens to the school's closed circuit broadcast system and notes that the gunman is located just three doors down—a different location from where he was when the search began. He immediately updates his the team inside, saving time and lives.

Under the direction of Marlin Mickle, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor, and in collaboration with ICE, LLP, a Wadsworth, Ohio, technology company, the RFID Center for Excellence is developing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to aid first responders in such scenarios. The system requires the first responders to wear RFID tags that can be precisely tracked on equipment in the police car. In conjunction with the school's closed-circuit television system, the police guide will also be able to view the locations of others in the school, and thereby steer rescuers through a more successful mission.

"We want to protect the first responders, and to help save the lives of students and teachers," says Mickle, who is currently testing this technology in a lab environment on the fifth floor of Benedum Hall. Mickle and the research team—which consists of electrical and computer engineering graduate students Peter Hawrylak, James Rapach, and Michael Rothfuss—can predict the accuracy of the tagged individual within seven-to-eight feet. "We plan to make our technology more accurate for the sake of the emergency response team," Mickle notes. Although a patent for the method and device has already been filed, Mickle and ICE will wait to roll out the devices until the tag and responses are fully tested for accuracy.

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