First Responder Smart Tracking Challenge

First Responder Smart Tracking Challenge - Phase 3

Early Prototype Demonstration

Other Funding

Program Type
Other Funding

Understanding a responder’s location inside of structures is invaluable to first responder coordination and safety. In this challenge, you’ll explore how 3D tracking technology can be used in high-stress, time-sensitive environments. Successful participants will produce a technology that can track first responders to less than 1-meter accuracy in three dimensions, with no pre-deployed infrastructure and in a variety of non-ideal environments. It is essential that the solutions developed and submitted in the final phase of the competition meet the diverse needs of first responders.

Phase 3: Refined Prototype Demonstration – 10 Prize Winners
Teams will provide an interim report of progress in building out and testing their initial systems.
Judges will determine if teams have made adequate progress in developing a solution that will meet target benchmarks.
Teams will provide a complete system design, benchmark performance data, including sensor
data, and a video demonstration of the system working with the possibility of a remote interview.
Up to 10 teams will be invited to Phase 4.
All eligible contestants are invited to submit an early prototype demonstration.
The submission will be an expanded version of the concept paper with expected details on the prototype design, documentation of the initial development efforts and outcomes, and a product roadmap. Walk-on competitors and those who entered Phase 2, whether they won a prize or not, are eligible to submit.

The FRST Challenge is comprised of five phases, each with increasingly advanced submission requirements. Read below to learn more about the competition and about the Phases.

Marketable Prototypes

The goal of the FRST Challenge is for participants to produce marketable prototypes that demonstrate indoor localization and tracking of first responders within 1-meter accuracy in a variety of buildings without pre-deployed infrastructure. Successful solutions will be robust for first responder use cases, scalable across diverse organizations and communities, and affordable for first responder organizations.

Entrepreneurial Support

Teams who advance in the competition will be offered support from competition business partners to help take their innovation from prototype to product. Teams will be judged on their technology, but they must also prove that they have a viable business strategy to successfully introduce their product to the market and into the hands of first responders.

Prize Pool

Teams will be eligible to win prize money from Round 1 onward. We recognize that hardware and software must be purchased to begin the prototyping process, and up to thirty Phase 2 prize winners will receive crucial funding to support their innovation through the rest of the competition. Prize money grows as teams advance through each phase, and up to six winners will ultimately be selected in Phase 5 for the largest amounts of funding.

Future Phases

Check out an overview of each competition phase below - complete rules for each phase will be released as the competition progresses.

Let’s Get Started.

To apply or join the program, please submit an application.