The Department of Homeland Security has selected eight companies to further develop unmanned aerial system, in-building sensor and communications technology prototypes under the second phase of the Smart Cities Internet of Things Innovation Labs initiative.

DHS said Wednesday its operational units, industry partners and first responders will test the platforms through a series of soft-target and search-and-rescue scenarios over the next 12 months.

Under phase 2, the developers will aim to implement an approach to simplify the commercialization process for their offerings.

“This process provides an ‘integrate-test-apply’ development and deployment approach to the much-needed mission capabilities to help meet homeland security needs,” said Jeff Booth, SCITI Labs program lead at DHS’s S&T directorate.

The participating companies are:

• Airgility
• Coolfire Solutions
• Datakwip Holdings
• EcoDomus
• Excession Technologies
• Mutualink
• One Engineering
• Third Insight