Algorithm for Fast and Reliable Fire Detection.
Algorithm for Fast and Reliable Fire Detection.
(91 K)
Jones, W. W.
Fire Suppression and Detection Research Application, 8th
Annual Symposium. Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
Proceedings. January 21-23, 2004, Orlando, FL, 1-3 pp,
2004.
Keywords:
fire suppression; fire detection; fire detection
systems; algorithms; neural networks; fire growth; false
alarms; smoke spread; detection time
Abstract:
The purpose of detecting fires early is to provide an
alarm when there is an environment which is deemed to be
a threat to people or a building. The current generation
of fire detection systems is designed to respond to
smoke, heat, gaseous emission or electromagnetic
radiation generated during smoldering and flaming
combustion. Smoke is sensed either by light scattering
or changes in conductive properties of the air, heat by
thermocouples and thermistors, the electromagnetic
spectrum by photodiodes, and gas concentrations by
chemical cells. While there is much additional work in
progress to use solid-state and electrochemical sensors
for oxygen, hydrogen, water vapor, carbon dioxide,
chlorine, hydrogen sulfide, the full gamut of fire
detection is possible utilizing currently available
sensor technology. It has been shown that the best
combination for early detection has been shown to be the
complement of ionization, photoelectric, carbon monoxide
and temperature. This paper will demonstrate that low
level sensing can achieve the goal of producing early
detection using these signals. The example we use is a
neural network trained with a model of fire growth and
smoke spread. This allows us to reduce the time to
detection as well as reduce the error rate for both
nuisance alarms as well as missing fires.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899