Medical sensor technology for disaster response

In the ViseKat research project, researchers are developing a wireless vital-sign sensor patch for disaster scenarios, designed to support emergency personnel in assessing and continuously monitoring patients. Following the project's approval in 2026, a prototype is expected to be developed by 2029. The system is designed for use in mass casualty incidents (MCI), where reliable real-time data can support more effective decision-making. In this interview, Norman Pfeiffer, Head of the Medical Sensor Systems group at Fraunhofer IIS, outlines the goals and challenges of the project.

In so-called mass casualty incidents, emergency services quickly reach their limits. What specific challenges in current disaster and emergency medicine are you addressing with your research on ViseKat – and why do you see a particularly urgent need for action in this area?

In mass casualty incidents, medical decisions must be made under extreme time pressure and with limited personnel. Triage is typically based on a brief snapshot: vital signs are recorded once, after which there is often insufficient capacity for continuous monitoring. As a result, critical deterioration may be detected too late – with direct consequences for patients’ chances of survival.

With ViseKat, we are addressing this critical gap between initial triage and ongoing care. Our goal is to support emergency responders in detecting changes in a patient’s condition at an early stage and in dynamically adjusting treatment priorities. Our vision is to optimize the process as a whole. Technological support can help allocate scarce resources more efficiently and in a more targeted manner. This is becoming increasingly important in light of rising extreme weather events, global crises, and increasingly complex emergency scenarios.

In the ViseKat project, you are developing a wireless sensor patch that simultaneously measures and transmits multiple vital parameters. What makes this approach unique – and which existing research areas and expertise at Fraunhofer IIS were you able to build on?

The distinctive approach of ViseKat lies in the combination of ease of use, continuous situational awareness, and the potential to extend the technology beyond mass casualty incidents. In deployment, two sensor patches are intended to be applied to the patient—one on the forehead and one on the chest. The patches are designed to continuously measure respiration, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and other physiological parameters, to estimate blood pressure, and to transmit these patient-specific data wirelessly and in real time to the incident command center.

At Fraunhofer IIS, we draw on many years of expertise in medical data acquisition, sensor-level signal processing, and energy-efficient wireless data transmission. This enables us to capture biosignals at medical-grade quality under real-world conditions – not only in controlled laboratory environments. This combination of technological depth and strong application focus allows us to develop a solution that takes realistic deployment scenarios into account from the very beginning.

The use of technology in disaster scenarios places particularly high demands on both systems and personnel. What challenges arise when new sensor technologies like ViseKat are required to perform under real-world operational conditions – and how are you already addressing these challenges in your research at Fraunhofer IIS?

In disaster scenarios, systems must be highly robust, quickly deployable, and intuitive to use. At the same time, emergency responders operate under significant stress – often in adverse environmental conditions and with very limited time for training or error correction.

These conditions are a key starting point for our research. Whenever we integrate sensors into everyday objects or operational systems, the focus is always on people – the users and their specific needs in real-world applications. Our goal is to support and improve existing care processes in a meaningful way. That is why, in ViseKat, real requirements from medical disaster response are incorporated into the development process from the very beginning. To achieve this, we work closely with our project and practice partners, the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC and the Institute of Rescue Services, Emergency and Disaster Management (IREM) at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt.

Thank you for the interview, Mr. Pfeiffer.