Joost Zuidema and Bram Fokkens, students Advanced Sensor Applications at the Hanze Institute of Technology, developed a  navigation system that can help police and emergency personnel. They've built an affordable system that enables the leader of the team to track their personnel inside buildings. With minor adjustments, it can also be suitable for the fire department.

GPS disturbed
Since GPS signals are disturbed by concrete and metal structures, this can't be used to locate people inside buildings. Therefore, the students equipped a shoe with a sensor that gives data regarding the whereabouts of emergency personnel inside. The sensor in this working prototype determines the position of the person by tracking foot movements. From a distance a monitor can display where the troops are, real-time.

INS
The Inertial Navigation System (INS) works independently, without any help from systems in buildings. The navigation system is commissioned by the police in Groningen and developed by HITs' Centre of Excellence for Intelligent Sensor Innovation (CENSI).

CENSI is a Centre of Expertise at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, and is based at HIT. CENSI provides a centre of applied research, specialising in the area of sensor technology, where students and lecturers can undertake minors, internships, student exchanges and graduation assignments.

See also:
rtvdrenthe.nl
dvhn.nl
Dagblad van het Noorden
hetgezinsblad.nl
BNR Nieuwsradio (interview with Joost starts at 09.30 minutes)