Holy Smoke!

C-Thru is a helmet that is designed to help firefighter walk through dense smoke during smoke diving search and rescue missions. Time constrains of six minutes per mission, makes it imperative that the gear is optimal. C-thru gives them the edge thanks to the wire-frame vision of the interior geometry, surrounding the smoke diver. Using technological enhancements, the helmet provides a visual map of the interiors so that it becomes easy for the firefighter to locate the victims.

This is how it works:

  • C-Thru’s vision system integrates many technologies to aid firefighters, such as a head-mounted projection display, optical thermal camera, cloud computing, selective active noise cancellation and target acquisition.
  • The optical thermal camera captures the imaging of the surrounding area and sends the data to the smoke diver leader’s handheld device.
  • The data is calculated there and sent back to the helmet.
  • Newly generated 3D wire-frame data is projected by the head-mounted projectors through the retro-reflective front visor of the helmet.
  • This wire-frame outline of their surroundings helps firefighters find a path through the building and locate victims.

Designer: Omer Haciomeroglu