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Wearable Computers for Disaster Relief

nym | 01:38 PM

The University of South Australia are developing wearable computers with augemented vision for disaster relief, like that of the recent hurricanes in Louisiana and Florida.

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Flooding in New Orleans

"If particular experts aren’t available in the disaster area, they can direct field staff from the control center. For example, suppose a chemical plant is required to be shut down, an expert in the control center can view the situation via the field operative’s wearable technology, and give directions to the field staff on how to close the plant, even circling which lever to operate in the field operative’s view through the goggles," Thomas said.

The project consists of three components: the indoor visualization control room, the outdoor wearable AR system, and collaboration between the indoor and outdoor systems.

They claim that there is nothing else on the market that is comparable, and the only similar projects are the University of Columbia's "MARS" and the US Naval Research Lab's "BARS". Since I can't properly evaluate their work, I really don't understand why they believe their product is so radically different. In any case, they will be demoing it at SEARCC 2005, which is going on today, tomorrow, and Friday in Sydney, Australia.

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