Fire Progression Monitoring via Multi-State Sensor Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional fire detection systems face difficulties in effectively communicating complex fire information to firefighting personnel, especially in unfamiliar areas or large facilities, due to the complexity of displaying fire locations and progression.
Innovation Solution
The system introduces a four-state mode of operation for fire sensors, including normal, alarm, trouble, and failure states, utilizing multi-function detectors and processors to create fire signatures, heat maps, and 3D visualizations to accurately depict fire conditions and progression, enabling better decision-making for firefighters.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If conventional fire detection systems use simple alarm indicators and basic maps, then the system is easy to operate and understand, but the fire information display becomes insufficient for complex fire scenarios and large facilities
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments fire information into four distinct states (normal, alarm, trouble, failure) and represents each state with specific visual indicators on the map. This segmentation allows comprehensive fire information to be displayed in an organized, non-overwhelming manner, resolving the contradiction between information completeness and display complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds temporal dimension by displaying the time of activation for each alarm and using color-coded indicators to represent different states. This multi-dimensional representation provides comprehensive fire information without requiring complex textual descriptions, maintaining ease of interpretation while improving information completeness.
2Loss of information
If the display shows detailed lists of activated detectors and activation times, then fire location and progression information becomes available, but the display becomes difficult to interpret quickly under emergency conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses color-coded indicators to represent different fire detector states (normal, alarm, trouble, failure) directly on the map. This visual coding allows firefighters to quickly grasp fire progression and location without interpreting text lists, resolving the contradiction between providing comprehensive fire progression information and maintaining ease of rapid interpretation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transforms tabular fire progression data into a spatial visual representation on a facility map, adding the spatial dimension to the display. This allows firefighters to immediately understand fire location and progression patterns by viewing the distribution of colored indicators across the facility layout, rather than scanning text lists.
3Loss of information
If firefighters need to understand fire location and path in unfamiliar areas, then comprehensive detector status information must be provided, but conventional displays fail to provide intuitive spatial understanding
Solution Approach 1:
The patent overlays fire detector status information directly onto a visual map of the facility, adding the spatial dimension to the display. This allows firefighters to immediately understand fire location and progression by viewing the spatial distribution of colored indicators across the facility layout, eliminating the time needed to correlate detector IDs with physical locations in unfamiliar areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses color-coded visual indicators to represent different fire detector states on the map, enabling firefighters to rapidly comprehend spatial fire patterns. This visual encoding provides intuitive spatial understanding of fire location and progression without requiring time-consuming interpretation of text-based detector lists or unfamiliar facility layouts.
Data Source
AI summary
A system is provided that includes a plurality of fire detectors distributed throughout a secured geographic area, a monitoring panel that detects a status of each of the plurality of fire detectors and saves a status indicator of the fire detector indicating one of normal, alarm, and fault into a memory along with a time value, an alarm processor of the monitoring panel that detects alarm signals from the plurality of fire detectors and presents respective indicators of the activated fire detectors on a geographic map of the secured area shown on a display, and a fire progression processor that displays an indicator of a progression of a fire on the map of the display based upon the status indicators saved in memory and upon a correlation between a status indicator of alarm in a previous time period and a status indicator of fault in a more recent time period.