The Collaborator Series: Project Firestream

Longan Vision (LV) and the Firestream team (Firestream), a capstone group from the 4th Year Mechatronics Engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, collaborated together to develop a wearable body camera that can utilize the mobile network (LTE/ Wi-Fi / 5G) to stream real-time thermal video and sensor data for firefighters, to a central command terminal.

The problem firefighters currently face is when they are called to a fire related mission, they have to use a bulky handheld thermal imaging camera (TIC - also known as a thermal imager / gun), which causes various concerns for the safety of the firefighter and the speed they can help save lives.

LV is developing a wearable device that frees firefighters hands by converting the current TIC solution to a helmet mounted augmented reality (AR) device called the Fusion Vision System. For more information about the FVS, please visit https://www.longanvision.com/fvs. The body camera project was a natural step forward for LV’s innovative team as they could further develop real-time bi-directional video streaming over the 5G network.

From the hardware’s humble beginnings as a simple Raspberry Pi and breadboard, to its final design that included an enclosure that can withstand extreme environments with all sensors and the thermal camera embedded inside functioning, showed the dedication and work ethic of the project partners.

Over the 8-month joint-development and two device prototype generations later, LV and Firestream have enabled the bodycam to be able to stream thermal camera images from a local-network-based solution with uncompressed data to a website, to be a much more robust LTE-compatible application with encryption to a cloud application that can handle bi-directional messaging and analysis.

Firestream and LV have developed an application programming interface (API) and moved the software development kit (SDK) and hardware design to the actual AR device. LV is planning to launch the product in late 2021 / early 2022.

The knowledge and experience gained by this joint-development project can be transferred to the development of the AR device later.

LV wants to thank Firestream for their dedication and support during this project. LV also wants to extend a thank you to Ontario Centres of Innovation (OCI) for their support in 5G technology and innovation!


FireStream Group Members



Pravin Selvarjah ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/pravinselvarajah/)

Mithilan Muralitharan ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/mithilan/)

Danny Thomas ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannythomas97/)

Mansimrit Bajwa ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/mansimrit-bajwa/ )

Nishil Master ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishil-master-887a28a8/ )

Shubhang Mall ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/shubhangmall/ )