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Public safety

First responder preparedness

News and Updates

Two men participating in a tech demo at 5x5 Chicago

Technology Demonstrations at 5x5

Do you have an innovative, cutting-edge, or emerging technology that has the potential to advance public safety communications? NIST Public Safety

Blog Posts

Four men are protected by a net structure as they look away from the camera toward a drone flying in a large high-ceilinged room with street signs on the walls.

Drones in Disaster Zones: How Advanced 3D Mapping Technology Can Help First Responders Save Lives

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A person in a baseball cap and face mask stands at a computer surrounded by scientific equipment, including a curving black plastic tube.

NIST Partnership Helps Communities Manage Unknown Dangers in Common Street Drugs

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Team image of ARCC at the NIST PSCR 2021 First Responder UAS 3.1: FastFind Stage 3 Live Demonstration

It Takes a (Worldwide) Village to Improve Drone Technology for First Responders

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Events

Projects and Programs

First responders collecting samples of the yeast surrogate material during a field exercise. (Credit: NIST)

Standards to Support Biothreat Detection

Ongoing
Since 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks in 2001, suspicious white powder incidents continue to occur within the US, often requiring Federal law enforcement response. Suspect samples are sent to public health laboratories for confirmatory evaluation, which can take hours to weeks to receive
Photograph of a dog sniffing luggage.

Metrology and Standards for Canine Olfactory Detection of Explosives

Completed
Effective and accepted by the public, trained dogs are the most frequently deployed detection systems for identification of explosives threats in mobile applications. In addition to being highly sensitive, dogs can rapidly discriminate the unique profile of an explosive in a presence of a large

Publications

Building Fire Hazard Predictions Using Machine Learning

Author(s)
Eugene Yujun Fu, Wai Cheong Tam, Tianhang Zhang, Xinyan Huang
The lack of information on the fire ground has always been the leading factor in making wrong decisions . Wrong decisions can be made by individual firefighters

Tools and Instruments

Large Aperture Scanner

Large Aperture Scanner

The Large Aperture Scanner (LAS) scans a radar transceiver over a 5 meter by 20 meter aperture. Image reconstruction techniques enable a three-dimensional