Oceanit Laboratories, Inc., a small Hawaiian science and engineering firm, and the Univ. of Virginia’s Dept. of Computer Science, have developed a small, low-power routers that can be carried in a dispenser on a firefighter’s belt and automatically drops the routers whenever the firefighter steps behind concrete or beyond radio range. The Wireless Intelligent Sensor Platform for Emergency Responders (WISPER) was developed and demonstrated through funding provided by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology branch through the Small Business Innovative Research program. WISPER contains a two-way digital radio, antenna and three-volt lithium battery and the throwaway routers are one-inch square and a half-inch thick. The routers are waterproof and heat resistant up to 500 degrees Farenheight. WISPER allows an incident commander to track the movement of the firefighters in a building, tunnel or forest fire for the and for vital signs–such as body temperature, blood pressure and pulse–to be relayed back to the base station. As routers are dropped from a canister they arrange themselves into a network. If a router gets kicked down a stairwell or fire hosed under a couch, the network will automatically reconfigure. Oceanit and UVA demonstrated WISPER for DHS in March at a Federal Emergency Management Agency office, with three researchers wearing the system as they moved through the building. DHS says in every test the signals remained strong, even at up to 150 feet. The routers’ use the low-power communications protocol ZigBee to pass radio signals. The system automatically warns firefighters if the dispenser is running low. DHS is developing the routing technology because currently when firefighters enter a building their analog radios have trouble penetrating debris and concrete and even a GPS satellite signal won’t follow. DHS S&T says the SBIR project has been successful and is looking for someone in the private sector to produce the routers in volume.