The demands on modern rescue organizations are constantly growing, while personnel resources often reach their limits. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) increases safety, reliability, and speed in operations. The automation of administrative routine tasks allows experts in the control center to concentrate on safety-critical, complex situations and final decision-making with less stress and more focus.

Technological Basis and Application Areas

Within the scope of the project, the existing ONDEWO Call Center AI Platform (CCAI) was configured and seamlessly connected to the relevant telephone and IT systems of Johanniter Austria. Three essential application areas were realized, covering the entire process from incoming to outgoing calls:

• AI Mediation (Classification & Prioritization): To minimize waiting loops, the AI recognizes concerns immediately upon first contact. Emergencies are instantly identified and prioritized for forwarding to the responsible departments, which decisively shortens the reaction time.
• AI Patient Transport: Routine tasks such as booking or canceling patient transports tie up enormous time capacities. Through the use of #ONDEWO Agentic AI, these processes are now handled securely and fully automated – including direct data transfer to the deployment control system.
• AI Alert Chain: Every second counts during major events. Instead of tedious, manual phone chains, the AI informs hundreds of emergency personnel simultaneously in natural language and simultaneously records their operational readiness, which massively accelerates the entire rescue chain.

Technology in Service of People (Human-in-the-Loop)

A core aspect of the industrial research was the naturalness and stability of communication. ONDEWO’s language processing was optimized to remain stable even under extreme stress and with loud background noise. The “Human-in-the-Loop” principle was always paramount: The technology does not replace people but strengthens existing resources and acts as a reliable partner so that people and technology work hand in hand for the benefit of the population.

A Signal for the Future of Emergency Services Organizations

The successful evaluation shows that an AI-based control center possesses enormous scaling potential. The system was designed so that it can also provide valuable services for other organizations such as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund or the Red Cross, as well as for other emergency services organizations (fire department, police).

Due to the excellent, collaborative partnership with Johanniter Austria and the valuable feedback from operational practice, we are pleased with the particularly successful completion of this complex undertaking. Special thanks go to the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), which made this project possible within the framework of the security research funding program KIRAS.

The “AI Control Center” project is financed within the framework of the security research funding program KIRAS/K-PASS by the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Together, we secure the operational capability of the rescue forces and the protection of the population – for a modern control center structure that is scalable, secure, and consistently future-oriented.

For detailed results, please visit the official FFG project database here.

The post 13-month FFG KIRAS project “AI Control Center” successfully completed by ONDEWO and Johanniter Austria appeared first on ONDEWO.

This project researches and develops new AI algorithms and methods in the areas of Speech-2-Text (speech recognition), context-sensitive dialogue (Natural Language Processing & Understanding) and Text-2-Speech (human voice synthesis) to automate the communication between air traffic controllers and pilots, as well as a decision automation system for ATM process automation. For the evaluation of AI in security-sensitive environments, a simulation environment for ATM processes will be developed and an external advisory board will be put together with air traffic controllers, pilots, airports, airlines and others.

The industrial research results from the cooperation between the speech AI specialist ONDEWO and the ATM market niche leader Frequentis opened up new possibilities for AI automation in the ATM area in order to achieve the next level of safety in air traffic, which we as humans cannot achieve with our cognitive performance alone. As a basis for this research, the ONDEWO Call Center AI Platform (CCAI) was used to conduct and develop the advanced artificial intelligence algorithms.

The project included technical and operational evaluation, with more than 100 test runs and the collection of feedback from 12 Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs). It was supported by an advisory board consisting of Austro Control, Skyguide and Austrian Airlines to add an operational viewpoint. Speech-2-Text transcription processing was very fast with an average time of 1.6 sec to process an average of 5-8 seconds of input audio. The radio transcription has been optimised down to a WER 13-14% and CER 8-10% compared to WER of 16% or more of cloud engines.

Based on the good cooperation with Frequentis, the interesting feedback from the participants from the Advisory Board and the current findings, we are pleased about the particularly successful completion of this complex research project. The findings of this research project result in further possible use cases in the ATM area for research and commercial ideas.

For more detailed results, please visit our project partners Frequentis official press release here.

The post 2 year FFG Take Off “Next Generation Safety” project successfully completed by Frequentis and ONDEWO appeared first on ONDEWO.