7500 Greenway Center Drive

Suite 420

Greenbelt, MD 20770

(+1) 301–313–0053

info@trxsystems.com

TRX First Responder Location and 

Mapping Services

Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program

Jeff Kunst – VP, Product and Business Development

Matt Herbert – Battalion Chief, Arlington County, VA
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DISCLAIMER

This presentation was produced by guest speaker(s) 

and presented at the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology’s 2019 Public Safety Broadband 

Stakeholder Meeting. The contents of this 

presentation do not necessarily reflect the views or 

policies of the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology or the U.S. Government.

Posted with permission
TRX Systems: 3D Mapping and Tracking 

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Network Coverage 

Validation

Events and Public 

Buildings

Critical Incident 

Response

Ubiquitous Personnel Location and 3D Mapping: 

Inside buildings, underground, in dense urban and GPS-denied areas

Industrial – Defense – Public Safety

Improves Safety, Command Awareness, and Operational Effectiveness

Urban and SubT

Warfighter Tracking
NEON Use Cases, Exercises, Deployments

Signal Mapping, 

State, Local, Federal

• Mapping/geolocation of LMR, LTE and other signals with 

Anritsu, Viavi, Keysight, Tektronix, and standard mobile devices

• Signal and sensor mapping for defense/federal depts

SuperBowl LI, Large 

Event Venues

• Law enforcement, EMTs, Federal Security Personnel

• NEON App (Superbowl) and ATAK App (LA Conv Ctr)

• Situational awareness and safety; reduced radio traffic

Immigration and 

Customs

• 24x7 situational awareness at large border checkpoint

• 7 floors, indoor and outdoor 3D coverage (~1M sqft)

• Integrated with Operations and Command Center 

DHS Active Violence 

and Disaster OpEx

• Active violence OpEx at Grand Central Terminal exercise (NYPD, 

FDNY, others); Harris County Opex

• Disaster OpExs at Harris County, Birmingham, and GMU

Radiation Mapping

(DARPA)

• Tracking of law enforcement within transport hubs

• Mapping radiation from low-cost, body worn detectors to 

support dirty bomb detection

Warfighter Urban 

and SubT

• Situational awareness within urban, SubT environments

• UWB Technology enables shared location using check-ins 

dropped beacons; user to user location collaboration Building Subway

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Arlington County Fire Department 

Arlington County, VA

• Northern Virginia, near DC

• ~250,000 residents

• 26 sq miles 

• Home of the U.S. Pentagon

Identified GPS-denied tracking as critical issue 

more than 5 years ago

• Many tall buildings creating urban canyons

• GPS-denied or impaired in many areas

• Chief Herbert providing technology leadership

• Station 5 supported feedback and testing

Battalion Chief Matt Herbert

Station 5

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The Need for GPS

-Denied Tracking...

• Arlington County FD runs ~30,000 calls every 

year. Station 5 runs ~7000 calls per year.

• CAD provides tracking of vehicles (with some 

error in urban canyons) but not personnel

• The Location Technology Need: • Ubiquitous, seamless and reliable indoor and outdoor 

tracking of personnel both in and out of vehicles

• Lightweight, rugged, integrated in/with something they 

already use or carry (radio, SCBA...phone?)

• Limited or no interaction needed from firefighters • Little or no setup when arriving on-scene • Simple visualization that shows seamless team locations 

on-scene

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Objective: Mission Critical Location and Mapping

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X/Y Quadrant of building (~5-

10m or better)

Z-Axis Accurate floor level/relative 

location and 3D path

Device Mission critical devices –

radios, cellular, hubs 

Coverage 100%. Urban, suburban, 

rural. Everywhere.

Environment Extreme. Heat, fire, 

explosions, wind/storms...

100% Solution, Including in Difficult to Cover Basements, High Floors, Dense 

Buildings, Residential Buildings

Requirements Solution

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NEON Personnel Tracker – Indoor & Outdoor Location

GPS-Denied Mapping and Tracking

• Improves operational efficiency, 

command effectiveness, and safety

• Real-time, 3D location calculated at 

every step

• Sensor fusion, map and ranging 

technologies

• Android smart phone paired with 

NEON Tracking Unit

• API delivers lat/long, altitude, floor 

level, building data

Location Assistance 

Data and

Collaborative 

Mapping

Tracking 

Accessories 

NEON 

Location 

Service

3D Mapping 

and 

Visualization

Network

Bluetooth 

NEON 

Cloud 

Service

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TRX PSIAP Program Goals

• Deliver robust, higher accuracy 3D 

location for first responders

• Use wider array of location inputs and 

constraints

• Make available comprehensive map 

data sources and tools

• Expand use of known and inferred building 

information

• Deliver easy to use 3D visualization

• Enhance map databases to make them 

easy to modify, validate, synchronize

Targeted Use Cases: Tactical Law Enforcement & Fire Personnel 9
NEON Fusion Solution Delivers Mission Critical Layer

Fusion of GPS, RF, Devicebased Location, Inertial & 

Pressure Sensors, Map Data, 

and UWB

Initialization

Key parameters include start position, heading, user 

mounting location and gait; learned from GPS, beacons 

or manual input

Satellite and

Terrain Data

Reference for placing user in global frame with latitude, 

longitude and altitude above sea-level; allows for 3D 

visualization

Sensor 

Fusion

Inertial sensors (gyro, accel, magnetometer, and 

pressure) plus other Android based sensors used to 

calculate movement in local frame

Building 

Data

Shape files give 3D construct for “floor level” tracking; 

structural features (stairs, entrances, elevators, ramps) 

provide constraints for matching

RF Signals RF (cellular, Wi-Fi, BT) data can be learned/mapped such 

that it can be matched to when use case allows. 

Beacons

Optional UWB or BLE beacons; Tactical use cases benefit 

from ad-hoc UWB “Drop” Beacons for team initialization 

and location updates. 

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TRX PSIAP Program Activity

Program Goals

1. Deliver robust, higher accuracy 3D 

location for first responders

2. Make available comprehensive 

map data sources and tools

3. Deliver easy to use 3D 

visualization

4. Test and validate with first

responders

Year 2 Program Activity

1. Expand UWB technology 

usability for first responders

2. Continue development of 

mapping tools

3. Incorporate feedback from to 

enhance ease-of-use of 

mapping/visualization tools

4. Build on baseline user testing to 

demonstrate full-scale tracking 

performance

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Enhancing Vehicle Based Tracking Capabilities 

Goal #1: Deliver higher accuracy location

• First Responders typically ride in vehicles to 

incidents - maintaining initialization and 

tracking while riding in a vehicle improves 

overall accuracy for this use case

• Development Focus:

a. Vehicle “mode” detection

b. Maintaining initialization parameters when 

in vehicle mode

c. Utilized new GPS-UWB config for beacon in 

vehicle to provide location while driving

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Enhancing Vehicle Based Tracking Capabilities 

• Mode Transitions - Updates have been made to more 

accurately detect transitions to vehicle mode 

• NEON maintains the users heading lock during vehicle transit 

enabling the user to more accurately track as they exit the 

vehicle near a building (where GPS is often unreliable)

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Expanding Usability of UWB for First Responders

Goal #1: Deliver higher accuracy location

• Good initialization creating an accurate 

starting position and heading is important to 

achieving highest infrastructure-free accuracy

• GPS is a source of initialization but phones 

held in a pocket provide poor GPS accuracy

• UWB provides highly accurate range data and 

is an excellent technology for initialization 

when available 

• TRX applied/tested UWB technology in the 

form of ad-hoc drop beacons that provide a 

highly accurate initialization constraint

UWB Drop Beacon - Provides initialization 

and ad-hoc accuracy enhancement; 

beacon “dropped” by “navigator” provides 

input for all other team members.

UWB 

Drop 

Beacon

UWB Ranging:

• EIRP: -41.3 dBm/MHz

• <.5m error @ ~30m

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NEON UWB Drop Beacons

Enabling UWB Drop 

Beacons for “team lead” 

or “navigator”

“Drop” UWB Beacon 

with NFC (Touch the 

UWB beacon to the 

phone’s NFC.)

Beacon will auto enable 

and begin advertising to 

all users in subscription. 

UWB technology designed for 

public safety incidents

• Multiple design iterations for 

ease-of-use

• Robust to movement, 

discontinues ranging if moved

• Doesn’t require Cloud connection

• Ranges within subscription only

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Mapping and Tools Enhancements

Goal #2: Make available map data and 

tools

• Map data provides valuable constraints that 

can improve location solution; also improves 

situational awareness

• Access to map data is limited so map data 

must be easy to import, generate and share

• “NEON Mapper” is a mobile app that allows 

for easy-to-use mapping of buildings and 

underground spaces from the handheld 

device

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v Easier to Use – identified and eliminated 

common user errors

v Hierarchical Access – integrated Mapper 

function within Personnel Tracker as an 

“admin” capability

v Nav Lock Indicator – improved user 

experience while tracking

v Beacon Update Tool – IDs and enables 

required firmware updates

Start/Stop 

collecting features

Nav Lock 

Indicator
Creating Map Data - Command Building Editor

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Goal #3: Deliver easy 

to use 3D mapping 

and visualization

• Preplanning of structural 

features provides 

improved tracking 

accuracy

• Added skybridges and 

other types of structures 

including ramps, raised 

regions, escalators, and 

multiple stair types
Creating Map Data - Command Building Editor

Enable users to more easily 

create and map complex 

buildings...

...and to use complex features 

for navigation constraints

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Use Case Validation and Testing

• Requirements, use case definition

• Training on the solution, new features

• Testing/trials with new features

• Usability assessments, gap analysis

• Performance analysis

Arlington County, VA 

Fire Department

Goal #4: Feedback and testing

4 Level Abandoned Office Building

Testing Location

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NEON Testing with ACFD - December 2018

Test Group – 2 groups of 4 ACFD Firefighters 

(Engine and Ladder Crews) 

• 3 exercises; 10-15 minutes each

• Simulated structure fire incident

NEON Performance Testing

• Building – preplanned structural features, 

No Wi-Fi, no installed infrastructure

• Initialization – tested with 2 prototype 

“UWB Drop Beacons” 

Performance

• Approximately 5m average error

• Ground Truth for FF testing is a challenge Relative Accuracy: 2D image of “ground-truth” 

(yellow) and a firefighter track on 3rd floor

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December 2018 Testing with ACFD

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June 2019 Testing with ACFD

Test Group – 2 groups of 4 ACFD Firefighters 

(Engine and Ladder Crews) 

• 3 exercises; 10-15 minutes each

• Simulated structure fire incident

• Added vehicle mode testing

NEON Performance Testing

• Building – preplanned structural features, 

No Wi-Fi, no installed infrastructure

• Vehicle Mode Testing including new vehicle 

beacon feature (GPS-UWB config)

• Initialization with single UWB Drop Beacon

• Ground-truth with new “Debug Beacons”

• New automated data analysis tools used

3D Full Config Without 

Beacons

Average .1 floors .5 floors

Measurement 

Points 3349 3349

Standard 

Deviation .3 floors .6 floors

2D Full 

Config

Without 

Beacons

Average 3.9 m 7.9 m

Measurement 

Points 3349 3349

Standard 

Deviation 3.7 m 8.2 m

2D and 3D results with post processing

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June 2019 Testing with ACFD

Real-time results and visualization:

• X-Y accuracy was good

• Z-axis had ~1 floor error on some of the FFs 

during live testing

Data Analysis

• Analysis using ~20 debug beacons allowed for 

fast data analysis and accuracy calculation

• Analyzed data and changed algorithm for drop 

beacons to eliminate z-axis error

• Results showed that new “vehicle mode” and 

onboard UWB beacons were valuable but also 

required some algorithm changes

• TRX reprocessing software allows TRX to rerun 

navigation logs with updated algorithms

NEON Testing with ACFD

NEON Location Service

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Where do we go from here?

• Field testing with the public safety community 

to enhance ease-of-use of mapping and 

visualization tools

• Continue to expand UWB technology 

application for first responders including for 

initialization and vehicle mode tracking

• Further development of mapping tools and 

database access to further simplify access to 

map data for first responders

• Continue to apply and test technologies from 

other use cases to improve safety and 

situational awareness for first responders

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7500 Greenway Center Drive

Suite 420

Greenbelt, MD 20770

(+1) 301–313–0053

info@trxsystems.com

TRX First Responder Location and 

Mapping Services

Jeff Kunst

kunstj@trxsystems.com

703-969-1257
Come back for the 

Next 

Session

3:30 PM

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#PSCR2019