flare

About flare Android App

SUMMARY:
flare: a torch in the back of your pocket allows you to shed light to outdoor and indoor explorations in unknown territory.
Situation assessment and awareness never have been easier with intuitive tracking and navigation, and collaborative tools.
Import indoor blueprints, geo-fencing zones, and POIs and overlay them on different base map layers.
Create various POIs, select their severity, add a comment, and finally ask for backup.

FEATURES:
º Smart, hybrid, infrastructure-free positioning, especially indoors
º Seamless tracking in pedestrian and vehicle mode
º Backtracking: navigate to a safe position
º Floor detection
º Mapping: satellite and blueprint layers
º Situation Assessment: geo-referenced POIs
º Collaborative mode: interact & ask for backup
º Visual and voice feedback
º Emergency button to send “Man down”
º Offline operation
º Web portal for administration and cloud

IMPORTANT:
Application was meant for use by specialized emergency response personnel (First responders, Firefighters, Search and Rescue, Red Cross, Humanitarian NGOs).
Thus you need an account to use the app. It can be solicited through our contact mail.
Please read our manual for advanced operation: http://147.91.50.168:8000/f/9dd5c400a0/

In order to exploit all functionalities of the app you need to have a phone with all INS (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) and barometer. Working Internet connection is needed for collaborative mode.
Prior to every use it is recommended to perform a simple magnetometer calibration (simple 8 figure).
In order to use a hands-free mode you will need a belt holster to firmly place the mobile.

LIMITS:
Application is HW dependent i.e. with better (read newer and higher class) INS sensors,
application is able to perform better tracking indoors.
This said, application has a limited time span where it can hold a reasonable accuracy (in order of couple of meters).
After certain time, accuracy deteriorate due to too large drift and hence it needs a GPS to reestablish a true position.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
flare was developed by the Institute "Mihajlo Pupin", Belgrade, Serbia (http://www.pupin.rs/), as part of efforts on a EU funded FP7 project SPARTACUS (http://www.spartacus-project.eu/).

CONTACT:
For any inquiries (account requests, proposals for collaboration, etc.) please send us an email to [email protected]