Center for Emergency Informatics EDGE Innovation Network Data Sheet

© 2013 General Dynamics C4 Systems. All rights reserved.
Center for Emergency Informatics
Industry & Academia Partnering for First Responder
Advancements
8/7/2013EDGE® Innovation Network | www.edge-innovation.com 1
The EDGE® Innovation Network is a revolutionary model where industry, academia, and non-profit organizations, along with
government entities, collaborate in an open community environment to rapidly deliver new technologies and innovative
capabilities to warfighters, first responders and end users of technology.
Our mission: Create and maintain an open environment where members and customers can characterize, nurture, develop and
deliver current and emerging technologies and capabilities to equip a more mobile, better connected and better informed end-
user.
The EDGE Innovation Center for Emergency Informatics, located on the campus of Texas A&M University,
connects industry with the world's largest training facility for emergency professionals. Allowing research to
be conducted at a top 10 engineering institution, the EDGE accelerates the transfer of advanced defense
technologies and products that revolutionize how disasters, large and small, are handled worldwide.
With unique facilities and operations already in place at Texas A&M University and the direct access
to customers in the field, the Emergency Informatics Center is recognized as both user- and
capability-focused.
Contact
Dr. Robin Murphy, Co-Lead Center for Emergency Informatics Mike Thorlin, Chief Technologist
Office: 979-845-8737 | Email: murphy@cse.tamu.edu Mobile: 480-298-7314 | Email: mike.thorlin@gdc4s.com
The Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX)
which trains over 200,000 professionals from
all 50 states and as many countries annually in
Firefighting and Emergency Services, Homeland
Security, Law Enforcement, Public Works and Safety,
Technology and Economic Development and Search and
Rescue. TEEX is the Texas state agency for urban search
and rescue and hosts Texas Task Force 1. TEEX operates
numerous training facilities including:
Disaster City®--A 52-acre site featuring full-scale
collapsible structures designed to simulate
various levels of disaster and wreckage that can be
customized for the specific needs of any group.
Emergency Operations Training Center (EOTC) provides
realistic, scenario-based incident management
training using simulation and computer-based technologies
to train incident managers, supervisors,
executives, public officials and military personnel to
manage large scale crises.
Customer access in the field

Advancements
•Incidents CRASAR has Participated In:
•Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident
•Tohoku Tsunami
•Post-L’Aquila Earthquake, Italy (2009)
•State Archives Collapse, Cologne Germany (2009)
•Post-Hurricane Ike (2008)
•Berkman Plaza II Collapse forensic support (2008)
•Berkman Plaza II Collapse, Jacksonville FL (2007)
•Crandall Canyon Coal Mine Collapse, Utah (2007)
•Midas Gold Mine Collapse, Nevada (2007)
•Post-Hurricane Katrina (2005)
•Post-Hurricane Wilma (2005)
•Hurricane Katrina (2005)
•La Conchita Mudslides (2005)
•Hurricane Charley (2004)
•World Traded Center 9/11 (2001)
Support to Disaster Relief
Center for Robot-Assisted Search and
Rescue (CRASAR)
CRASAR is a Texas A&M Engineering Experiment
Station Center whose mission is to improve
disaster preparedness, prevention, response, and
recovery through the development and adoption
of robots and related technologies. Its goal is to
create a “community of practice” throughout the
world for rescue robots that motivates
fundamental research, supports technology
transfer, educates students, response
professionals and the public. CRASAR is a
dynamic mix of university researchers, industry
and responders.
Dr. Robin Murphy is the Director of CRASAR. Read
her bio at this link
The Center for Emergency Informatics (CEI)
serves as a portal into the existing world-class
research, practice and facilities through the
Texas A&M University System in information
technologies to prevent, prepare for, respond to
and recover from disasters. CEI engages in a
multidisciplinary exploration of human-
information systems at extreme temporal,
spatial, data and agent scales bringing together
52 faculty in 9 disciplines.
CEI connects these centers:
• Center for Housing and Urban Development
• Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue
• Digital Libraries
• Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center
• Institute for Science Technology and Public
Policy
• Internet Technology Center
• Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center
• Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute
• Offshore Technology Research Center
• RFID Oil and Gas Consortium

Advancements
Headquarters Location
Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service
200 Technology Way
College Station, TX 77845-3424
Facilities
Brayton Fire Training Field
Disaster City®
Emergency Operations Training Center
OSHA Training Institute Southwest
Education Center
Riverside Campus - Texas A&M University
H. B. Zachry Training Center
People Served
126,063 trained
57,692 technical assistance
183,755 total people served
2.8 million contact hours
4,300 classes conducted
States Served
Texas - 91% of communities
USA - all 50 states, territories and District
of Columbia
Countries Served
Trained/ served citizens from 79 countries
Travel/Extension Training in Texas
Over 1.4 million miles traveled annually
across Texas for on-site training and
services
Fact Sheet
Texas A& M Engineering Extension
Service (TEEX)
Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX)
is an internationally recognized leader in the
delivery of emergency response, homeland
security and workforce training, exercises,
technical assistance, and economic
development. The agency operates a
comprehensive emergency preparedness and
infrastructure training campus, which includes
some of the world’s top facilities for hands-on
training. Courses are conducted by instructors,
many of whom are recognized experts in their
respective fields. TEEX offers on-site,
customized training and services to businesses
and industries, municipalities and public
agencies across the globe.
Home to the National Emergency Response and
Rescue Training Center, TEEX also sponsors the
elite Texas Task Force 1 Urban Search and
Rescue team. A state extension training agency,
TEEX is a member of The Texas A&M University
System.
Comprehensive Training Provider
Leveraging more than 80 years of extension
training experience, TEEX efforts contribute to:
•Fire safety and enhanced emergency response
•Cleaner drinking water
•Better roads and infrastructure
•Enhanced homeland security
•Safer workplaces
•Improved public safety and security
•Therapeutics manufacturing
•Cybersecurity
Major TEEX programs
•Fire and rescue
•Infrastructure and safety
•Law enforcement
•Economic and workforce development
•Homeland security
Download At A Glance : TEEX for a printed
overview of the services offered.

Advancements
GeoSuite Initiative
GeoSuite® is a web-based, multimedia common
operating system that allows users to collect, report,
and share information. It is designed specifically for
users at the lowest levels of execution like police
officers, rescue workers, field agents, and volunteers. It
improves situational awareness and facilitates
collaboration and information sharing and analysis
between users.
Through the EDGE Innovation Network, General Dynamics
C4 Systems is collaborating with the Center for
Emergency Informatics and the First Responder
community on the implementation of GeoSuite® in Urban
Search and Rescue and Disaster Response operations.
First Responder Broadband Testbed Initiative
The First Responder Broadband Testbed Initiative is a
collaborative effort between General Dynamics C4 Systems, the
Texas A&M Center for Emergency Informatics, Texas A&M
Telecommunications and the Texas A&M Engineering Extension
(TEEX). This effort is intended to provide a means by which
Texas A&M Telecommunications, General Dynamics and the first
responder community can test and evaluate broadband
technologies and first responder systems-of-systems in a high-
fidelity, public safety centric operational environment. The
First Responder Broadband Testbed is a self-contained, 700Mhz
(Band Channel 14) LTE network node which is operated at the
TEEX Disaster City training facility and can be deployed to
alternate test and training sites as well as to incident scenes in
support of actual disaster responses.
Respond-R
Respond-R is a research project at the Texas A&M University, supported by a $2 Million MRI grant from the National
Science Foundation. It is a multi-disciplinary and integrated research effort to facilitate field research in Emergency
Informatics (EI). EI is the real-time collection, processing, distribution and visualization of information for prevention,
preparedness, response and recovery from emergencies. The research scope of Respond-R can be divided into 4 core
domains – Unmanned and autonomous systems, Networking, Sensors and active sensing, and Human Robot Interaction
(HRI). The goal here is to provide the researchers a complete and modular framework with unmanned system platforms
(aerial, ground, and marine) plus an extensive, reconfigurable wireless network and next generation of robot and human
performance sensors.
Respond-R is expected to have a profound impact on research and training. It will create the technology to support
incident management of events such as disaster response, emergencies, while also performing continuous monitoring and
prediction tasks.
The primary motivation behind Respond-R is the fact that the ongoing research in Emergency Informatics usually focuses
on a specific technology e.g. unmanned vehicle, network configuration, a sensor etc. Clearly emergency informatics
requires strong interaction between these disparate components and the physical world with humans in the loop. Respond-
R aims to address this lack of comprehensive instrument for disaster response. Read more about Respond-R

Advancements
Summer Institute - June 2013
The Summer Institute sponsored and
presented by the Center for Emergency
Informatics, is a hands-on exploration of the
science, engineering, education and practice
of Emergency Informatics: real-time
collection, processing, distribution,
visualization of information for prevention,
preparedness, response and recovery from
emergencies. Systems research is grounded
in fieldwork and an understanding of the
practice. The Summer Institute series
emphasizes learning about multi-disciplinary
messiness of real world scenarios based on
collaboration with the responders from the
Texas Engineering Extension Service, (the
state agency that hosts Texas Task Force 1)
law enforcement professionals, policy
experts and other subject matter experts at
the 52-acre Disaster City complex along with
social networking volunteers at Corpus
Christi. The Summer Institute emphasizes
learning about new domains, envisioning
new uses of technologies, evaluating our
existing technologies and generating new
directions.
The Summer Institute consists of two parts,
a walkthrough of the entire response process
followed by fieldwork with the experts and
agencies where researchers and industry
work to insert technology using the learning
lab format created at the Cognitive
Engineering Laboratory at Ohio State.
Participants in the 2013 Summer Institute
included the Texas Center for Environmental
Quality, Texas Task Force 1, Texas Army
National Guard Civil Support Team, as well
as EDGE members General Dynamics C4
Systems, Vislink and ImageInsight.
Winter Institute - November 2013
Based upon the Summer Institute model, the
Winter Institute is a General Dynamics C4
Systems/EDGE Innovation Network sponsored
event that integrates, exercise and
evaluates command and control and
communications technologies in support of
the first responder community.
The Winter Institute is a net-centric exercise
where General Dynamics C4 Systems and
other EDGE member technologies of mid -to
-high Technical Readiness Levels are
integrated to leverage complementary
capabilities as a means of exploring how our
respective products can be utilized for the
benefit of the first responder community, as
well as to provide direction regarding
product development. At all times, emphasis
will be on 700MHz LTE systems and those
systems and applications that leverage
700MHz LTE networks.
These technologies will be evaluated as part
of operational scenarios at the Disaster
City® training site, Texas A&M Engineering
Extension Service, College Station, Texas.
The Winter Institute exercise is presently in
the planning stages. Interested entities that
have applicable products and technologies
should contact the EDGE Innovation Network
regarding participation.

Center for Emergency Informatics EDGE Innovation Network Data Sheet

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Center for Emergency Informatics EDGE Innovation Network Data Sheet