Chemical, biological detectors to improve first responder reaction.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News

* For first responders dealing with chemical or biological attacks or accidents, every second counts.

Two companies are working to cut down the amount of time it takes hazardous material response teams and hospitals to understand what threat they are facing.

RAE Systems Inc. is offering cloud-hosted service for real-time detection and sharing of gas and radiation data across multiple remote sites. The ProRAE Guardian CloudServer connects to the company's suites of wireless sensors.

Connecting the data to the Internet facilitates mutual response from other hazmat teams or agencies such as National Guard units or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"Now you can seamlessly integrate all those units and really coordinate large-scale events," said Bobby Sheikhan, director of product management at RAE.

Data collected at a site where nerve gasses or toxic industrial chemicals are released can be accessed securely in real-time by any authorized user--including global experts in incident remediation that could be anywhere in the world, he said.

The cloud service follows the introduction last year of the company's new mesh routers, which allows for closed-loop wireless communications and also extended the range between the host and the monitors from 330 feet up to 0.6 miles. RAE's handheld, multi-modal sensors can detect radiation and hazardous gasses. Included in the system is a weather-monitoring sensor that can indicate wind speed and direction and let decision-makers know where a toxic cloud may be heading.

Also part of the system is the BioHarness, a health monitoring system that lets incident commanders know if a hazmat team member is in trouble. It keeps tabs on their heart rate, body temperature and can tell them if they have collapsed.

"It gives you the ability to monitor multiple locations and really gives you a quick assessment of what you are dealing with, where [the toxic cloud] is heading, and allows you to make critical decisions," said Sheikhan.

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Meanwhile, Rapid Pathogen Screening, Inc., is hoping...