Knowing a first responder’s exact location at an emergency scene is critical to their safety, especially when every second counts. A new partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Indiana University is advancing the technology that tracks emergency personnel inside large buildings. The standards ecosystem surrounding this work is helping lay the groundwork for more effective emergency response.
The First Responder Challenge
Tracking first responders inside large buildings has long been an unsolved problem, according to NIST. GPS works well outdoors, but signal blockage—particularly in high-rise structures—makes reliable indoor positioning far more difficult.
To tackle this, NIST awarded Indiana University’s Crisis Technologies Innovation Lab (CTIL) $8 million through its Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program to lead the First Responder Smart Tracking (FRST) Challenge. The goal: to develop prototype devices capable of tracking first responders inside complex buildings.
Participants were tasked with designing wearable devices that are lightweight, accurate across long and complicated indoor paths, able to transmit location data back to a base station, and durable enough to withstand the demands of a firefighting environment.
Connecting the Dots to Safety
The project took shape at NIST’s Dots facility, a sprawling test environment with more than 2,000 precisely mapped reference points distributed across hallways, stairwells, offices, laboratories, machine shops, underground tunnels, and warehouses. Teams tested their devices by tracking individuals as they navigated to hundreds of these points throughout the facility, putting each system's ability to pinpoint a person's exact indoor location through its paces.
In a Matter of Trust, Standards Lead the Way to Responder Safety
For first responders to trust and rely on this technology, NIST emphasizes that it must be rigorously tested. The buildings selected for the Dots facility were chosen in accordance with ISO/IEC 18305, Information technology - Real time locating systems -Test and evaluation of localization and tracking systems, an international standard developed by ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee (JTC) 1, Subcommittee (SC) 31, Automatic identification and data capture techniques. The U.S. plays a leading role in both bodies, with ANSI serving as secretariat of both committees. INCITS administers the ANSI-accredited U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to JTC 1, while AIM Global administers the U.S. TAG to SC 31.
Indoor tracking is just one piece of a broader standards ecosystem supporting emergency response and public safety. ASTM International has developed standards addressing body armor for non-law enforcement first responders (E3348/E3348M-25) and radio communication capabilities for emergency response robots (ASTM E2854-12). ASTM also explored the role of standards in disaster response in a 2025 episode of its Standards Impact podcast.
ANSI member APCO International has developed numerous American National Standards in the public safety space. These include guidance for crisis intervention techniques and call handling procedures for both new and veteran public safety telecommunicators (ANSI/APCO 1.120.1-2021), minimum training standards for public safety telecommunicators at all experience levels (ANSI/APCO 3.103.3-2025), and a best practices guide to help emergency communications center management better understand and handle wireless 9-1-1 technology (ANSI/APCO 1.103.3-2022).
Access more information about the First Responder Smart Tracking Challenge.