Home Fire Egress Guidance With Automatic Floor Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Many families fail to create a home fire escape plan or practice it regularly, despite recommendations from fire districts, leading to potential difficulties in safely exiting a building during emergencies.
Innovation Solution
A system that automatically determines a building's floor map using user detection devices and fire detection devices to identify safe exit routes, which are then communicated to users through signaling devices, with an improvement engine employing machine learning to adapt to changing occupancy and circumstances.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If families create a written fire escape plan with map and pathways, then escape preparedness is improved, but many families still fail to create or practice the plan regularly
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically generates the floor map and identifies safe pathways by analyzing data from user detection devices and fire detection devices, eliminating the need for families to manually create escape plans. The system serves itself by autonomously determining building layouts and calculating safe routes without requiring user input or manual mapping.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by continuously monitoring and mapping the building layout in advance of emergencies, storing this information for future use. The floor map and pathway identification are performed beforehand, so when an emergency occurs, the system can immediately provide guidance without requiring families to have pre-created written plans.
2Loss of information
If a manual fire escape plan is created, then escape routing information is available, but the plan cannot be automatically updated to reflect changing occupancy and circumstances
Solution Approach 1:
The system continuously receives feedback from user detection devices that track occupancy changes and fire detection devices that monitor emergency conditions. This feedback loop enables the system to automatically update the floor map and identify new safe pathways in real-time, adapting to changing building conditions without requiring manual plan revisions.
Solution Approach 2:
The escape plan transitions from a static manual document to a dynamic system that automatically adapts to changing conditions. The floor map and pathway identification are continuously updated based on real-time data from detection devices, allowing the system to respond to occupancy changes, building modifications, and emergency conditions automatically.
3Measurement precision
If user detection devices and fire detection devices are deployed throughout the building, then real-time monitoring and floor map determination are improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The detection devices serve multiple functions: user detection devices not only detect occupancy but also contribute to floor map determination and pathway analysis, while fire detection devices simultaneously monitor emergency conditions and trigger system responses. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate specialized systems, managing complexity while achieving precise measurement.
4Speed
If automatic exit route determination is implemented, then real-time emergency guidance is improved, but the system must process and analyze data from multiple detection devices
Solution Approach 1:
The data processing system is segmented into distinct functional modules: one module processes user detection device data to determine occupancy and movement patterns, another module processes fire detection device data to identify emergency conditions and safe zones, and a third module integrates this information to calculate optimal exit routes. This segmentation allows for faster, more efficient data processing by dividing complex analysis into manageable tasks.
Data Source
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AI summary
An emergency guidance and advisement system is provided to automatically determine a floor map of a building and using the floor map for advising how to exit the building during an emergency, such as a fire. The system can automatically create an escape plan, based on pre-disaster and in-disaster motion detection of users within the home, and provide dynamic advisement to guide users out of the home during an emergency.