iBR - intelligent Building Response

Real-time Remote Building Information for Public Safety

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Overview

The “intelligent Building Response” (iBR) project at NIST BFRL is about getting building sensor information out of a building and presenting it in real-time in useful ways to fire, police and others as they respond to a building emergency. We are also looking at how the building infrastructure can support first responder communications. The intelligent building aids building incident response by sharing status of fire, security and control systems in the building, as well as by connecting responders to outside command.

Today’s modern buildings function with multiple control systems programmed to run different building systems. Network communications carry commands from controllers to actuators and switches, and a host of sensors feed data back to controllers. Yet, for the most part, all this information is bottled up in the building even while it could provide tremendous situational awareness to those outside the building, telling them where a fire is, where smoke is, where occupants are, which devices are operating, which lights are on, or which doors are open. Why should first responders need to do a size up at the scene in order to find out what is happening inside? Real time information regarding building systems should be available while they are enroute to the scene. Why can’t a dispatcher see into the building from the start of an incident, even before vehicles are dispatched?

In simple terms, the best response is not only fast, it’s informed. In the future, emergency responders could receive a wealth of information while they’re en route and during the incident. Lacking now is a standard method of moving real-time building data out of the building into the hands of emergency responders. And iBR is focused on developing standards to move the data out.  

The NIST SAFECOM connection

NIST Building and Fire Research Laboratory has worked with the fire service and building communications communities for many years to develop standards and new technology that serve public safety. Our current efforts to address moving building intelligence out to first responders began with the input of the federal government’s public safety interoperability efforts as directed by SAFECOM. SAFECOM is part of DHS and its mission is to serve as the umbrella program within the federal government to help local, state, tribal, and federal public safety agencies improve public safety response through more effective and efficient interoperable wireless communications (http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/). SAFECOM released the public safety practitioner developed Statement of Requirements (SoR) for a next-gen standard interoperable public safety network (pdf version available on the SAFECOM website), and continues to work on quatifying the requirements laid out in the SoR. NIST is working with SAFECOM and industry to develop standards that help bring interoperable communications to reality.

Current Status

The NIST Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES, http://www.eeel.nist.gov/oles/index.html) funded BFRL in 2003 to identify the needs of first responders relative to building information and then to identify a technological path for moving building data from a building to a first responder. This “Phase I” of the project is complete and the final report is available at the link below. Phase II of the project, focused on recommendations for extending first responder communications into the building using in-place building networks, began March, 2006. Phase II also gives input to SAFECOM to include building networks and sensor data into the Statement of Requirements. A mid-project review powerpoint presentation is available below as well as the report from our June high-rise and complex incidents workshop.

Accomplishments:

• Workshop held in May 2004 and report that documents for the first time the needs of emergency responders for building information during building incidents. (report on information needs: http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire05/PDF/f05017.pdf)
• Phase I final report has been released, available here on pdf, or by request as printed document (Report - NIST IR 7314)
• Security requirements for building information on the public safety network in the context of a building emergency incident have been documented in the Phase I final report.
• Draft interface guidelines were submitted to NEMA for standards consideration. These have now been released as part of standard NEMA SB 30-2005, Fire Service Annunciator and Interface., available at http://www.nema.org/stds/complimentary-docs/upload/SB_30_2005_final.pdf.
• NIST site demonstration with NIST fire and police of building interface and publish subscribe technology . Data from VCBT center published in XML format to Publish/Subscribe server with client (first responder interface) running in web browser that subscribes to data and uses building floorplan in SVG format to present real-time data.
• A video overview of the iBR project, which incorporates demo video, is distributed online (see below) and on CD at Fire and Police conferences, now with more than 15,000 copies distributed.
• The videos produced for this project are now in use by the National Fire Academy for class instruction and distribution. The US Fire administration airs the videos as part of regular cable TV programming.
• NIST has performed a study of network traffic on the NIST facility network to document applications in use and network traffic characteristics. The Phase II report will be available end or 2007.
• High-Rise Building and Complex Incident Emergency Responder Communications Workshop held June 20-21, 2006 at NIST. The workshop final report is available at http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire07/PDF/f07016.pdf (warning 58 MB)
• A presentation in Fall 2006 (available here: Mid-project review presentation) reviews argument for importance of the building in the emergency response, and presents some main results from the June workshop.
• Preliminary simulations of emergency responder voice and video communication over building networks have been performed. Simulation work is ongoing and results will be included in the final report.
• SAFECOM agreed to include the building interface and building applications that support emergency building response in the next version of the Statement of Requirements.
• Involvement with the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council and study of In-Buiding Wireless (IBW) systems led to a presentation in June 2007 on the role of IBW in serving the needs of public safety. That presentation is available here (presentation).
• We have begun work on a Building Information Services and Control System (BISACS) building interface to public safety. A first generation BISACS Building Information System has been completed. The system was implemented using building alerts encapsulated in the OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP).

Project Videos

Provided here are two video presentations that communicate the project vision:

		Video 1: An Introduction to iBR (an introduction to iBR, 11:45 length, 143MB download) An educational video for emergency responders—to let you know what buildings might tell you. And an invitation to the public safety and building information technology industries to join with us in making this vision a reality.
		Video 2: iBR Demonstration at NIST (Feb, 2005, 4:35 length, 64MB download) Footage from a technology demonstration at NIST is played while Dr. William Davis explains what is being seen on screen.
*** A CD containing these videos is available upon request.  Closed-captioned VHS versions of these videos are also available.  Email your request to ibr@nist.gov. ***

Comments

If you would like to submit a comment on the intelligent Building Response project or the videos about iBR, please use the contact information below.

Contact Information

To contact the project leaders for the intelligent Building Response project, send email to ibr@nist.gov.

 

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