Researchers test emergency Wi-Fi smartphone app

"In the future the technology will also be able to act as sensors and pick up humidity levels, workers' heart rates, temperatures, movement and pass these on to a central operator," said Politis.

Funded with a grant from the EU's PEACE Project, the team and Kingston University are currently in the process of patenting the technology behind the system with a view to licensed commercialisation. Because of the patenting issues, Politis is reluctant to explain the design of the peering protocols or how it securely juggles the client devices in difficult circumstances not to mention third-party applications such as video.

After a successful road test earlier this year in Portugal, the technology is undergoing further testing of its stability as the number of devices scales beyond 10.

Longer term, Politis believes the technology has applications beyond emergency teams, including any form of peer network built atop ad-hoc Wi-Fi, including possibly social networking.

"This could be one of the enablers of the future 'Internet of things,'" said Politis.