GNSS and GSM Enabled Data Collection System for the Rapid Documentation and Real-Time Tracking of Human Remains In a Mass Casualty Incident

Leveraging our experience in IOT development, electronics design, and embedded programming, Liebold Technologies proposes the development of a Mass Fatality Tracking System (MFTS) that includes inexpensive, low-power geolocation tracking tags and tablet-computer-based data entry devices to provide value to rescue workers at a mass casualty incident (MCI) who must rapidly document details about the discovery of human remains and communicate this information. The MFTS empowers these workers to quickly collect all the relevant, forensic information about a fatality, using a handheld tablet computer, and associate this information with the geolocation data streaming to the database from the tracking tag. Once this data has been uploaded to the cloud-based database, it can be immediately accessed by personnel everywhere using the web-base UI or other software using MFTS API access. The tracking tag functions by measuring its geolocation using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and transmitting this data to the cloud-based MFTS database using the cellular Global Service for Mobile Communication (GSM) throughout its service-life at 15 minute intervals, whenever the tag is in motion. The tracking tag uses lithium thionyl chloride (LTC) batteries and an advanced, motion-based power-saving algorithm to provide 30 days of operational life, after as much as a 10-year shelf-life. Paired with the data entry devices’ simple GUI-based data entry system and photo-based data capture, the MFTS will greatly increase the speed and efficiency at which relief efforts can process an MCI and provide invaluable information to all the agencies involved and anxiously waiting family members.