Rinisoft Ltd. (Bulgaria) and Correlation Systems Ltd. (Israel) successfully completed its participation in IMAGINE-B5G Open Call 2, testing a comprehensive solution for combating forest fires at the French facility over a 12-month period. The trials demonstrated that 5G-powered FORest Firefighting (FOR-5G) can transform firefighting by leveraging 5G technology to enable direct communication between command centers and drones, and between incident management teams and on-the-ground firefighters.
IMAGINE-B5G is a Horizon Europe / SNS JU initiative that provides an advanced end-to-end 5G/B5G platform enabling large-scale trials and pilots across Europe. The project federates experimental facilities in Norway, Spain, Portugal, and France, offering SMEs, start-ups, academia, and industry access to test innovative vertical applications and platform extensions. FOR-5G was one of the 15 projects selected in Open Call 2.
The Project aimed to leverage the capabilities of the IMAGINE-B5G platform and 5G technology to significantly improve forest fire detection, characterization, and firefighting operations for PPDR stakeholders by harnessing 5G-connected drones, IoT and sensor data for enhanced situational awareness and informed decision-making in critical PPDR scenarios.
Our system uses a drone equipped with advanced payloads: Rinisoft’s AI-powered vision system, SmaugAI, analyzes video feeds to automatically detect active fires and smoke patterns. At the same time, Correlation Systems’ innovative IoT sensors use Wi-Fi sensing to detect mobile devices, helping us to locate people in distress, even in areas with limited visibility or signal.
Trials were conducted in multiple stages in France, the UK, Israel, and Bulgaria to validate the full system under realistic conditions.
Key elements of the methodology included: Performance testing of 5G latency, throughput, and reliability; AI fire/smoke detection tests (VIS + IR); Video streaming and sensor telemetry over 5G; Data fusion and dashboard performance validation; Field trials simulating fire/smoke and locating mobile devices; and Comparison of baseline radio links vs. 5G commercial vs. 5G network slicing scenarios. Despite a hardware malfunction preventing a final flight demo, all core KPIs were validated in pre-trials and later replicated in the field.
The project achieved the following results:
- Outcome 1: Achieved an ultra-low end-to-end latency of 1.5 ms for data transmission, significantly below the 200 ms target, confirming 5G’s capability for real-time video and drone control. The system also demonstrated high data transfer rates of up to 83 Mb uplink and 173 Mb downlink.
- Outcome 2: The AI-powered vision system achieved an aggregate fire detection accuracy of 93.76% and reduced the total system response time (detection and control reaction) to under 5 seconds.
- Outcome 3: Demonstrated that early detection (2 to 10 minutes advance fire detection) could result in the fire size at intervention being 30–70% smaller, significantly boosting environmental sustainability.
- Outcome 4: Provided a proof of concept for a private 5G network fallback solution in disaster scenarios, ensuring robust and resilient communication for public safety teams.
The project contributed to establishing a robust and reusable PPDR reference model for future 5G applications, advancing the integration of IoT, AI, and edge computing in critical operations. These results demonstrate the readiness of the FOR-5G system and SMAUG AI software for commercial exploitation and integration with existing security management systems to strengthen Europe’s position in the B5G ecosystem.
The FOR-5G consortium plans to scale up the SMAUG AI software and system for commercialization with PPDR agencies and forestry services, using the established blueprint for future R&D and integration with existing security management systems.
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