Revolutionizing First Responder Safety with Real-Time Blast Threat Analysis Our solution is the first field-ready platform designed to address Capability Gap 2, with a focus on explosion hazards in urban, industrial, building and tunnel environments. URBEX is the TRL 7 version of our code, designed for urban explosions, while MALBEC is currently at TRL 5, and is dedicated to indoor explosions in buildings and tunnels. Key Features: •Real-time predictive modeling: Uses a patented meshless model to simulate blast wave propagation, accounting for urban geometry, reflections, and diffractions. Provides immediate (~1 minute) threat assessment as soon as a charge is positionned. •Seamless integration: Compatible with GIS data sources (for URBEX) and Building Information Model (BIM) data (for MALBEC), our codes can integrate responder geolocation, and may be coupled to existing situational awareness tools, ensuring interoperability and data sharing. •Intuitive visualization: Translates complex physics into evolving hazard zones on a user-friendly interface, reducing cognitive load for responders under stress. •Tailored to end-users needs: almost all French EOD and special / intervention forces are associated in the development of our URBEX-MALBEC codes. •Operational robustness: The URBEX code works on a standard laptop, MALBEC is designed for Android. •Field-proven reliability: the TRL 7 URBEX code has been validated, tested in real-world urban scenarios, and its alpha version has already been deployed in operational units. Why it stands out: Unlike oversimplified blast calculators (circular danger zones) or slow and complex 3D simulations, our codes delivers high-fidelity results at the speed of the front line. It bridges the "information vacuum" for first responders, enabling data-driven decisions to protect life and infrastructure. URBEX-MALBEC codes also address capability gaps 4 and 9 (smart data processing).
Our solution is a breakthrough real‑time simulation platform that transforms how first responders manage urban explosion threats. Unlike today’s tools, which either oversimplify danger zones with non‑conservative circular buffers or use heavy 3D CFD simulations that are unusable in the field, our technology delivers fast, operational, and accurate predictions directly where decisions are made. Built on a patented (patent FR3158819) meshless model, our codes run in nearly real time (~1 minute) while capturing complex effects such as multiple reflections and diffractions, channelling in street canyons (URBEX) or in building corridors and tunnels (MALBEC), providing a level of physical realism previously reserved for 3D numerical codes. The URBEX platform turns raw geospatial data (OpenStreetMap, SwissTopo, IGN BD TOPO, ArcGIS) into dynamic consequence maps and geolocated hazard zones that are immediately interpretable by civil protection units. Its interface is designed to minimize cognitive overload in high‑stress environments, offering intuitive visual support that directly guides evacuation, cordoning, and resource allocation decisions. The system is configurable to new threats and evolving urban layouts with minimal effort, ensuring long‑term relevance for both planning and crisis operations. By finally bridging the gap between cutting‑edge modelling and field‑ready decision support, our modelling innovation directly improves safety, operational efficiency, and response times— and a Direktion award will help our unique capability for resilient civil protection to reach the European organisations that urgently need it.
Our solution delivers a step change in how blast risks are modelled, understood, and acted upon in complex urban (URBEX) and indoor (MALBEC) environments. Built from the methodology developed during the URB(EX)³ and MALBEC projects, it replaces both slow, scientific-only 3D volumetric solvers on high-performance computers and crude empirical circular zones with a validated, fast, meshless model dedicated to blast wave propagation. By accurately capturing diffractions, regular and Mach reflections, wave channelling, it achieves a unique combination of physical fidelity and real time performance. Recent approaches based on IA are still slower than our method, and don't preserve physics. On a standard laptop (URBEX) or even on Android (MALBEC, under development), it generates detailed overpressure and consequence maps in under a minute, enabling exhaustive exploration of scenarios that would previously have been operationally impossible. At the heart of the URBEX-MALBEC innovation is our patented breakthrough method (patent FR3158819), which consists in a rigorous tree of unitary waves formulation, where successive levels represent reflected and diffracted waves and higher orders directly translate into higher accuracy. This meshless mathematical framework goes beyond the international state of the art and is already recognised through presentations at SUSI 2025 and MABS 2025. Coupled to a geospatial building representation from public datasets such as OpenStreetMap, the URBEX platform automatically produces rich impact maps (overpressure, lethality, eardrum rupture, glass breakage, and more) that are immediately usable by practitioners. An intuitive interface lets users define and locate the explosion, run the case, and switch between consequence models, turning cutting edge science into an operational instrument that improves risk zones, accelerates intervention, and directly enhances first-responder and public safety in real crises.
Our platform directly solves one of the most critical gaps in urban security today: the absence of fast, accurate, and field ready tools to assess the consequences of explosions in cities or in buildings. Today, responders must choose between crude circular buffers from oversimplified formulas or heavy 3D simulations that arrive long after key decisions have been taken, leaving lifes, assets, and credibility at risk. Our solution replaces this with a fast, meshless model that simulates complex blast wave phenomena—reflections, diffractions, channelling, etc. on a standard laptop. Operators can input the location and charge characteristics and almost instantly obtain consequence maps for overpressure, lethality, eardrum rupture, glass breakage and more, radically improving real time situational awareness, agility, and first-responders and citizens safety. Operationally, this means better defined exclusion / evacuation and deployment zones, and more effective use of scarce resources (including time) in the first critical minutes. The platform supports both live crisis use and pre-event planning and training, and post-event forensic analysis, enabling organisations to rehearse, optimise, and then execute and analyze their response with the same tool. Designed for robustness and low total cost of ownership, the system connects seamlessly to widely available geospatial datasets (URBEX) or BIM (Building Information Modellins) data or finger-sketched floorplans (MALBEC) and runs through an intuitive graphical interface designed with and tailored for end-users. It drastically lowers cognitive burden under stress and is immediately usable across civil protection, military, emergency management, and urban security planning, empowering teams with clear, contextualised intelligence that turns fragmented data into faster, smarter, safer interventions.
Our team brings together complementary expertise in science, geographic modelling, scientific development and 3D data visualization. With backgrounds in chemistry, CFD, engineering, GIS, applied mathematics and cybersecurity, we create innovative and user-centered digital tools. Balanced and multidisciplinary, we tackle complex technical and societal challenges with rigor, creativity, and a strong commitment to end-users, designing solutions tailored to risk prevention and crisis management.
Our team brings together complementary expertise in science, geographic modelling, scientific development and 3D data visualization. With backgrounds in chemistry, CFD, engineering, GIS, applied mathematics and cybersecurity, we create innovative and user-centered digital tools. Balanced and multidisciplinary, we tackle complex technical and societal challenges with rigor, creativity, and a strong commitment to end-users, designing solutions tailored to risk prevention and crisis management.