Custom Biometric Monitoring Solutions

Do you have specific communications needs that can’t be met with any standard solutions? For those situations that call for a unique solution, Tait offers Client Specific Development. Our engineers can work with you to find the best possible solutions that precisely fulfil your requirements, adhere to your constraints, and fit within your budget. This time, we take a look at custom biometric monitoring solutions.

In our previous blog posts on custom solutions, we discussed custom hardware, software and firmware. In this blog, we’ll discuss an example biometric monitoring solution the Tait Client Specific Development (CSD) team developed, and how it might benefit your organization.

When firefighters are combating blazes and protecting our communities, they’re focused on the task at hand – not necessarily the physiological stress that they’re under. By wearing a harness with a Sensor Electronics Module (SEM), the health status of first responders can be objectively measured. 

This means commanders and support crews can intervene when personnel are in distress—even if they aren’t conscious of it, or they deny it. The Tait CSD team can integrate a range of SEM devices to create a custom biometrics solution that works exactly the way you need it to.

Custom Integrations with Biometrics Devices

For workers in these dangerous environments, biometric monitoring can help to prevent injuries and occupational loss of life. The real-time insight into the well-being of staff can be the difference between life and grievous injury or death when they are involved in incidents. 

To enable the health monitoring of frontline emergency services, Tait CSD can develop custom biometric solutions that integrate portable radios and biometric devices. Custom integrations like these allow radios to receive the physiological data recorded by body-worn sensors and transmit it back to the control room. 

Use Case: European Fire and Rescue Service

Tait CSD was recently involved in a proof of concept for a European Rescue Service. The solution that was proposed combined a third-party SEM, Tait mobile radios, Tait portable radios and Tait Unified Vehicle.

How it works
CSD developed an application on Tait Unified Vehicle that polls the radios carried by frontline staff, asking for information from the SEM, which communicates to the radios via BlueTooth®.

Tait Unified Vehicle can store, process and send that information over ethernet or cellular to a real-time dashboard application on a laptop or smart device.

This graphical interface gives incident command or support staff instant access to each of their team member’s physiological data. It also enables them to set a wide range of trigger alerts whenever dangerous levels of heart or breathing rates, stress levels, low activity, heat stroke or falls are recorded by the SEM.

Not Just Real Time Insights
Besides real-time monitoring, the solution also stores the data captured by the SEMs on Tait Unified Vehicle. This information can then be used for post incident analysis, training purposes, or identifying any long-term health effects of continued exposure to extreme conditions. 

By tracking changes in health conditions over a longer period of time, you can more closely monitor certain staff and schedule routine physical examinations. Instead of workers leaving their duties or work site for the examination, their vital signs can be monitored remotely, as they continue their tasks. 

This saves considerable time and cost, provides more authentic measures, results in greater work efficiency and creates less resistance from workers, compared with the disruption of the physical examinations.

In short, having access to biometric data can dramatically increase health and safety procedures, accountability, tactical decision making and situational awareness.

All Elements are Highly Customizable

The above use case presents just a small sample of the possibilities a custom biometric solution developed by Tait CSD can offer. All the equipment needed for the solution is highly customizable:

  • Tait can integrate virtually any third-party SEM 
  • Custom software dashboards can be developed
  • It works on analog networks as well as digital networks (though analog radio does have lower data bandwidth) 

Its functionality isn’t limited to just physiological monitoring and recording; CSD can also integrate the sensors into indoor locations. This means that besides biometric data, indoor locations are also transmitted and recorded for even greater situational awareness.

Just as the functionality can be customized, so can the form factor be customized. CSD is currently looking to integrate the biometric sensors into self contained breathing apparatus, for example. 

The Tait Client-Specific Development Service

The Tait CSD team offers hardware and software customization to create customer specific solutions.

They can develop new software and hardware based on existing Tait products, integrate this with new or existing third-party equipment, or develop new radio products from scratch. 

The team works with you to design radio system elements that exactly meet your needs, taking into account your constraints and available budget. We often hear our willingness and ability to integrate and customize our products sets us apart from other vendors, and we’re proud to be able to provide this service to our customers.

Next Blog: Custom Active Noise Cancelling Mics

In our next blog about custom solutions we’ll take a look at a custom Active Noise Cancelling external microphone Tait CSD developed for a large transport authority. To make sure you don’t miss this post, subscribe to our blog using the form on this page.


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Our engineers are always keen for a new challenge. So what are your specific needs? We’d like to hear from you, to see if we can create a unique solution for you.

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