Safety Sense: Haptic Navigation for Emergency Responders in Obscured Visibility Environments

Emergency responders, specifically firefighters, run the risk of getting lost or disoriented in disaster environments due to situational chaos and low visibility. Our research aims to rectify this with a wearable haptic system. Using the lidar technology in Apple iPhones combined with path planning algorithms and haptics, we tracked a firefighter's pathway and calculated the most efficient egress path. Path directions were conveyed via haptic feedback, providing navigational guidance to a firefighter. This paper describes the experimental setup and preliminary results of our prototype haptic egress technology.