My latest article TheFeature.com is about how researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology are radio mapping doomed buildings to improve emergency wireless technology.
In the midst of a massive disaster, careful coordination is essential to the rescue effort. There's simply no room for communication problems. Unfortunately, on September 11, that's exactly what emergency response crews were dealing with. It wasn't a communication problem in the psychological sense, but rather a technological one. The building blocked radio signals, preventing commanders on the outside from reaching their teams inside. Later, emergency responders wielding wireless sniffers and mobile phones did their best to locate any survivors trapped in pockets within the collapsed buildings, but the radio signals were no match for the rubble.
Four years later, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are working to knock down communication barriers in disaster situations. To do it, they're littering large structures with wireless transmitters and listening carefully as the buildings topple.
