Citus Demonstrates GPS-Free Firefighter Tracking, Eyes Military Use

How it works

In the "infrastructure-less" design, the terminal calculates a person's position itself from their steps, heading and air pressure. It is built to work without installed infrastructure, network connectivity or online maps.

The system combines a wearable terminal using GPS, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a barometer and a light sensor with AI sensor fusion. Entrances, stairs and elevators are extracted automatically from fire-safety floor plans and used as landmark corrections. Mesh communication then feeds a command-centre view for position tracking. That layer uses one-to-many relays plus LoRa and 900 MHz Zigbee, so it can keep working if LTE or Wi-Fi goes down.

Proposals and wider discussion

Lee proposed joint firefighting and military trials, a standard for domestically made positioning terminals and data, and links from firefighting R&D results to defense experimental projects and civil-military technology cooperation.

Other speakers at the session covered related ground. KAIST professor Han Dong-soo described a national radio map that would combine GPS, base stations, Wi-Fi, UWB and 5G into one positioning infrastructure with seamless indoor and outdoor coordinates. He argued that future military operations should rely on 3D indoor spatial data and GeoAI situational awareness. Kim In-hyun of the geospatial firm presented on the map-export debate, summing up that maps are both security and livelihood.

The panel discussion touched on how to ensure the reliability of R&D results, how to respond to demand for location data, the completeness of R&D and clear criteria for national security.