Development and Performance Evaluation of a Novel Fire
Detection and Extinguishing system: Towards Industrial
Automation
Md. Selim Reza
1
, SM Mamun
2
1
(Lecturer, Department of Natural Sciences, BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology, Bangladesh)
2
(Professor, Department of EEE, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh)
Abstract:
Fire accidents are causing a huge human death as well as economic losses throughout the world every
year. But a novel fire detection and extinguishing system could reduce these losses to a great extent. We
areproposing a cost effective and yet very efficient system which has been developed in our laboratory
and evaluated while in operation. Our system consists of two units: detection unit and extinguishing
unit. For detection purposes we used smoke, IR and temperature sensors. While for extinguishing
purposes we used both foam and water. We used a PC to process and control our system through
LabVIEW software of National Instrument, USA. The detection unit will send signal through a wireless
module to PC if fire is detected. Then PC (LabVIEW) will process the signal and using relay module first of
all the electric power and gas lines will be turned off. The extinguishing unit will then release foam or
water to extinguish the fire. The system will send SMS to the predefined numbers using GSM module.
Our system is location independent as it uses GSM and can be operated from remote location using
wireless module. After performance evaluation it was found to be fast and reliable.
Keywords:
Detection unit; Extinguishing unit; IR; SMS; GSM module; Wireless module; LabVIEW; Foam
Introduction:
We are in an advanced world of technology. But it has been noticed with great concern that the fire
accidents and casualties are also increasing proportionally every year. According to the yearly report,
2018 of International Association of Fire and Rescue Services average number of fires (2012 to 2016)
only in USA is 1320100 per year [1]. According to Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defense, fire
incidents kill 233 people and injure 5000 every year in Bangladesh. In 2016 alone there has been 16858
fire incidents in Bangladesh causing 240 crore& 43 lakh financial loss, killed 152 and 247 were injured
[2]. According to the National Fire Protection Association, USA some main reasons behind fire accidents
arei) flammable liquids and gases, ii) faulty equipment and machinery & iii) electrical hazards [3]. So to
cope up these disasters we need to design a smart detection and extinguishing system on the basis of
Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 30 October 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201810.0182.v2
© 2018 by the author(s). Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY license.
above mentioned reasons. There has been a huge effort over the years to design and develop such
systems. Feiniu Yuan[4] designed a fire detection and suppression system based on widely
availablevideo surveillance. He used traditional CCD cameras for fire recognition and water gun for
suppression [4].AntidioViguria et al.[5] proposed a system that utilizesheterogeneous robots (aerial and
ground) for fire detection and extinguishing purposes. They developed a distributed market-based
algorithm called S + T to solve the multi-robot task allocation problem. Lee et al. [6] developed a fire
detection system based on controller area network (CAN).We are proposing a LabVIEW based fire
detection and extinguishing system which is cost effective and reliable.
Trends in fires in some of the countries of the world in 2012-2016
N
o.
Country
Population,
thousand inh.
Number of fires Average
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Per year
Per
thousa
nd inh.
a year
1 USA 323,128
13750
00
12400
00
1298000 1345500
12342
000
1320100 4.09
2 Russia 146270
16290
0
15295
9
150437 145900
13950
0
150339 1.03
3 France 66628
30687
1
28190
8
270900 300667
28570
0
289209 4.34
4
Great
Britain
63786
27280
0
19270
0
212500 191647
20100
9
214131 3.36
5 Spain 47079
14250
0
13500
0
128000 137000
12282
8
133066 2.83
Trends in fire deaths in some of the countries of the world in 2012-2016
N
o.
Country
Population, thousand
inh.
Number of fires Average number per
2012 2013 2014 2015
201
6
Year
100000
inh.
100
fires
1 USA 323,128 2855 3420 3275 3280
339
0
3244 1 0.2
2 Russia 146270 11652 10601 10138 9405
874
9
10109 6.9 6.7
3 France 66628 362 321 280 335 289 317 0.5 0.1
4
Great
Britain
63786 380 350 322 325 - 344 0.5 0.2
5 Spain 47079 170 132 162 143 175 156 0.3 0.1
Methodology:
Our system consists of three units i) detection unit, ii) receiving and processing unit& iii) warning and
extinguishing unit.The detection unit is responsible for the detection of fire. It consists of three sensors
and a transmitter. We used MQ-5 gas sensor, IR sensor and LM35 temperature sensor for detection
Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 30 October 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201810.0182.v2
purpose. For transmission purposes we used JMR-TX
1
Transmission module. The receiving part will
receive the transmitted signal from the detection unit. The processing part will confirm the detection of
fire following some specific criteria.The warning unit is for raising awareness among the inhabitants with
the help of Siren and SMS. The responsibility of the extinguishing unit is to suppress fire after detection.
We used both foam and water for extinguishing purpose. Figure below shows the block diagram of our
system.
Figure 1: Block diagram of the system.
Detection Unit:
Detection is one of the main parts of an extinguishing system and is based on various properties of fire
such as smoke emission, rise in temperature and optical radiation emission [8].We used MQ-5 sensor for
detection of gas and smoke, LM35 temperature sensor for detection of rise in temperature and
SKU152020 IRflame sensor for detection of optical flames. The MQ-5 is chosen because it has high
sensitivity, faster response, long life and it needs simple circuitry to drive. It can detect propane and
butane as well as other natural gases, cigarette smoke and alcohol. The LM35 is selected as it doesn’t
need any external calibration or trimming for precision measurement in Centigrade scale. By analyzing
optical properties of fire we can find thatit will emit some ultra violet and even some x-rays but that
amount is negligible.Most of the radiation emitted is in the infrared spectrum [8].So we selected the
SKU152020 IR flame sensor module for the detection of optical flame. A separate PCB has been
Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 30 October 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201810.0182.v2
madecombining these sensors along with a transmitter for accurate detection and transmission of the
signal to the receiving unit. We used ATmega8 microcontroller for proper operation of the unit and
compiled it with BASCOM AVR.The flowchart of figure 3 explains the operation of the detection unit.
Figure 2: Typical emission spectrum of hydrocarbon fire
Figure 3: Flow chart explaining the operation of the detection unit.
Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 30 October 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201810.0182.v2
Receiving and Processing Unit:
The detection unit will send voltage output signal in the form of string to the receiver via RF transmitter.
A separate PCB has been developed containing a RF receiver and PIC16 microprocessor and is connected
to PC through USB port. The received signal will be processed by LabVIEW program which is a popular
measuring and controlling software from the National Instrument, USA. A virtual instrument has been
made in this purpose. The MQ-5 will always send GAS if gas/smoke is detected to the receiver. The
program will then compare whether the string (GAS) is matched or not. In the same way the flame
sensor module will send FLAME if detected to the receiver. The program will then compare weather the
string (FLAME)is matched or not. The LM35 will send the temperature reading in centigrade to the
receiver. The program will check whether the reading is equal or greater than 100
0
C. Following table
shows the general temperatures of sources of ignition and from it we decided to confirm fire
temperature to be 100
0
C and more [9]. If these criteria are met the program will confirm the detection
of fire and will move to the next step. The whole process of the receiving and processing unit is shown in
the flow chart of figure 4.
Figure 4: Mechanism of receiving and processing unit.
Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 30 October 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201810.0182.v2
