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Specialist Task Force 555:
Study of use cases and communications involving IoT devices in emergency situations

Who we are:

 

Team leader:
Team Members:
Steering Committee:

What we do

The purpose of the STF 555 is to deliver a Technical Report to identify the requirements for communications involving IoT devices in all types of emergency situations (e.g. communications of individuals with authorities/organisations, between authorities/organisations, from authorities/organisations to the individuals, amongst individuals). This includes communications in three domains:
-    Emergency calling between individuals and authorities;
-    Critical communications within public safety authorities/organisations; and
-    Emergency broadcast via Public Warning Systems.
The deliverable will contain a study of the state of the art across the IoT domain scope, especially for communications relevant to emergency situations. It will cover the connectivity capabilities, but also other features such as interoperability, devices and sensors, security, etc. It will include an analysis of use cases for emergency service communications involving IoT devices, taking into account the work already done in other projects, such as oneM2M and 3GPP. Finally, it will conclude with an analysis of the impacts of these use cases on the existing specifications and of what needs to be standardized.

For more details, see our Terms of Reference

Why we do it

The Internet of Things (IoT) represents the next step towards digitisation where all objects and people can be interconnected through communication networks, in and across private, public and industrial spaces, report about their status and/or about the status of the surrounding environment and exchange data for intelligent applications and services to be developed. It includes devices in the physical world, as well as sensors within or attached to these devices, together with smart services and applications.

Accordingly, the scope of the IoT is wider than connectivity and communication systems and includes topics such as integration and interoperability, infrastructure deployment, devices and sensor technologies, or security and privacy. Standards are being written to enable the operation of IoT devices in many vertical domains, and when possible, across multiple verticals, in the so-called horizontal domain. A landscape and gap analysis of these standards has been drawn by former ETSI STF505 and is still under scrutiny by the AIOTI (Alliance for the Internet of Things Innovation) association within its WG3 (IoT Standardisation).
 
The IoT market is developing very fast. This domain now faces the challenge of a multiplicity of standards, solutions and platforms, among which many are proprietary. Nowadays, ICT services for emergency situations start involving IoT devices. Safety organizations use it internally, e.g. for staff work suit enhanced with IoT (fire fighters, policemen, etc.) or to report about temperature, location, health risks. Such reports can be sent directly to local as well as to remote control centres. The location of an emergency situation can be provided directly to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) by monitoring sensors. IoT can enable emergency events prevention, for example forest monitoring, smoke detectors in waste bins, or remote monitoring of patients with chronic diseases. During medical emergencies, patient data can be transferred directly from sensors in the emergency vehicle to medical staff in the hospital.

The IoT technologies are thus invading all application domains, including services for emergency support. However, requirements for communications involving IoT devices in emergency situations have not yet been specified to complement the existing requirements for communications involving individuals, authorities/organisations and their devices. The objective of this STF is to prepare the editing work of these specifications by first defining and analysing the use cases belonging to emergency situations and involving IoT devices. In a second step, the STF plans to derive, from the impact of these use cases, specification proposals to be implemented in existing or future standards.

How we do it

The work of the STF has been split into 4 main tasks. It is performed under the guidance of SC EMTEL, in liaison with TC SmartM2M and TC TCCE. Furthermore, interactions, e.g. sharing of the draft deliverable, are planned with the following Technical Bodies: ETSI TC SmartBAN, 3GPP SA1, 3GPP SA4, 3GPP SA6 and oneM2M.

Task 1 – Project Management and coordination with other organizations
Objectives: Coordination, communication, reporting and leading of the STF team activities, in collaboration with the ETSI secretariat and the steering committee.

Task 2 – State of the art for communications involving IoT devices
Objectives: Review of the state of the art for communications involving IoT devices
This task will take into account the standardization work already documented in a preliminary set of reference documents, and, when possible, further input documents. It will prepare a description of the state of the art related to communications involving IoT devices. It will cover the connectivity capabilities, but also other features such as interoperability, devices and sensors, security, etc.
The methodology for the development of this chapter of the Technical Report will be the following:
•    Analysis of the existing material and specifications
•    Identification of the main properties of communications involving IoT devices

Task 3 – Use cases for emergency services involving communications with IoT devices
Objectives: Definition of the main use cases for emergency services involving communications with IoT devices
The definition of the use cases will take into account the extended preliminary set of reference documents and outcomes of Task 2 and will formalize the description of the main use cases applicable to emergency communications.
The methodology for the development of this chapter of the Technical Report will be the following:
•    Analysis of the existing material and specifications
•    Identification of the main use cases of emergency situations which may involve communications including IoT devices
•    Formal description of the identified use cases
This task will also review and update when necessary the findings of Task 2.

Task 4 – Impact of use cases on specifications
Objectives: Definition of the impact of use cases on specifications
This task will combine the results of the two previous tasks to analyse the impacts of these use cases on the relevant existing specifications and to identify what needs to be standardized. It will derive global requirements for emergency communications including IoT devices.
The methodology for the development of this chapter of the Technical Report will be the following:
•    Identification of the impacts of the use cases defined in Task 3 and global requirements
•    Identification of the specification documents where these requirements could be inserted (including potentially new specification documents)
•    Presentation of these findings to ETSI SC EMTEL, ETSI TC SmartM2M, ETSI TC TCCE and if possible, ETSI TC SmartBAN, oneM2M and 3GPP to collect comments and enhance the outcome of this task.
This development will lead to a stable version of the draft TR that will be submitted to SC EMTEL for comments. After integration of comments a final draft will be issued for approval by SC EMTEL.

Deliverables

Technical Report TR 103 582: "EMTEL; Study of use cases and communications involving IoT devices in provision of emergency situations".

Time plan

Work Item : DTR/EMTEL-00041

•    Start of work       25-06-2018
•    ToC and scope    23-07-2018
•    Early draft           03-09-2018
•    Stable draft         10-01-2019
•    TB approval        03-05-2019
•    Publication         17-06-2019

How to contact us

For further details, or if you wish to be involved in the work of the STF, please contact the STF Leader by email: michelle.wetterwald@gmail.com

This information is based upon STF working assumptions.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent the position of ETSI in this context.