Contributions to the Development of Fire Detection and Intervention Capabilities Using an Indoor Air Quality IoT Monitoring System

Abstract

This paper presents a method for functionally extending an IoT indoor air quality monitoring network by adding a cloud-level fire detection logic component. The proposed method does not aim to replace traditional fire detection systems at this stage of research, but to propose a solution for the development of fire detection capabilities and to improve the support provided to firefighting teams by providing a geospatial representation of the building in which a fire occurs. The proposed solution is based on a series of laboratory tests that demonstrated that air quality sensors can successfully detect the effects caused by an ignition event of common materials and can differentiate fire events from other events that can generate false-positive alarms by classic detection systems. The research involved five laboratory combustion tests based on the measurement of temperature, humidity, PM2.5 particle concentration, volatile organic compound index, and nitrogen oxide index. Following the tests, a warning mechanism and geospatial representation were designed using a system with ten IoT sensors to monitor the indoor air quality in a building on our university’s campus.