SN based forest fire detection and early warning system

Abstract

This paper proposes a generic Sensor Network (SN) based forest fire detection and management system, which is scalable and readily deployable for all environments and terrains. SN are being deployed in critical and hazardous areas, for monitoring as well as for collection of useful environmental data for analysis. In these particular contexts, active fire detection and management in forest prove to be challenging, especially in areas which are remote, unapproachable or at the epicenter of such incident. The proposed system caters to the above said problem by allowing a visual representation of status of the sensor nodes (in real-time) through the use of web map system, connected to the strategically deployed nodes based on geography. This deployment is enhanced with the usage of a low power, high range and low data rate wireless protocol, for which the lifetime of the nodes can be further increased through an appropriate scheduling. Moreover, a system with environmental sensors and 3 level hierarchical network covering a total of 4 sq. km has been designed, to investigate the feasibility of the underlying system with the experimental scenarios of fire incident at certain nodes. Software modules providing detection functionalities have been implemented as prototype in the proposed system. The real time system has proved to provide a better visualization and real time tracking of the fire incidents, which in turn facilitates the fire management system as a whole.