First Responders Smart Uniform will Supply Power for Devices

First Responders Smart Uniform will Supply Power for Devices

Pauline Halemanu, a firefighter with the Marine Corps Base Hawaii Federal Fire Department, helps coordinates her team's emergency response to a simulated mass casualty incident during Exercise Lethal Breeze on MCB Hawaii, Sept. 6, 2012. Base personnel and local emergency services worked together to perform crisis response following a simulated mass casualty incident and an aircraft mishap, testing their communication, command and control, and rescue and mass casualty measures. The annual, one-day exercise was designed to further prepare the base to respond to potential incidents at the upcoming Kaneohe Bay Air Show, Sept. 29-30.

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Smart clothes technology enters the field of search and rescue. The US Homeland Security Department (DHS) is looking to outfit first responders with uniforms that can charge radios, sensors and other electronics they carry on the front lines.

The DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has awarded $199,260 to the company Protect the Force, for the development of photovoltaic (PV) energy harvesting fabrics. PV materials produce electricity through exposure to light. Energy harvesting fabrics produce and store electricity within a fabric weave to power portable devices.

The company will develop PV fiber that can be woven into a “power fabric” and integrated with first responder garments to provide a reliable, portable power source. The power fabric can be used to make first responder gear or placed as panels on protective clothing, according to dhs.gov.

The new technology “could change how first responders are able to perform during emergencies,” said Melissa Ho, DHS. “A wearable, portable power source could support safety equipment and communication tools; it has the potential to improve the work of first responders across the nation.”

At the first phase, the company will be fabricating and testing the PV fiber and weaving it into a textile matrix.

Electricity in clothes is mainly produced by body motion, body heat or the sun’s energy. Technology for producing electricity from motion is already available for shoes. British company Pavegen have also produced tiles that produce electricity when walked on, which are used at Heathrow Airport to power wall-mounted light-emitting diode lights, according to iam-media.com.