CSEM Scientific and Technical Report 2008

Wireless Sensor Networks for Fire Detection and Monitoring at the Wild-urban Interface
C. Kassapoglou-Faist, B. Perrin, , M. Sénéclauze
CSEM had the opportunity to test its low-power wireless sensor network in real-life deployments for fire monitoring in key locations. These
experiments allowed a better tuning of the network parameters and improving its deployment process. Firefighters found the tool useful.
Forest fires constitute a major threat to dry-climate areas
during the hot season and a considerable effort is dedicated
every year to their prevention, early detection and quick
suppression. Wireless sensor network technology has offered
new, promising perspectives in this task. As an expert in lowpower
wireless networks, CSEM had the opportunity to
develop, deploy and test such a tool in real life conditions,
through its participation in the EU project SCIER.
The aim of the SCIER project is the realization of a sensing
and computing infrastructure for environmental risks (forest
fires and floods) in the wild-urban interface, i.e. in areas where
wild vegetation and urban constructions meet.
The sensing system was tested in real conditions, in four
different situations (2 experiments and 2 deployments).
• In the first wind-tunnel experiments, which took place at
the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICH)
in Greece, the behaviour of the temperature and relativehumidity
sensors (Sensirion SHT11) was evaluated at the
passage of small-scale fire fronts (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Temperature and relative- humidity in a fire front
• The second experiment was conducted in Gestosa (PT)
and aimed at testing the different components of the
system in an outdoor controlled fire (Figure 2). For the
wireless sensor network, the challenges were to test and
validate the deployment and the robustness of the autoconfiguration
to fire radio disturbance as well as gather the
full real fire data (Figure 2).
• The first in situ deployment has been running since July
2008 in the region of Stamata, North of Athens, Greece.
Nineteen temperature and relative humidity sensors, one
anemometer and occasionally two vision sensors [1] have
been placed in a hilly area (communication-wise, covering
about half of the 540x540 m 2 ), and transmit their
measurements in a multi-hop way to a collection point
located at the municipal building nearby. In general, the
network has been operational. Fortunately for the area but
unluckily for the tests carried out, no fire erupted.
Nonetheless, the collected measurements have provided
real-life data that contributes to refining and training the
data fusion algorithms. The performance with respect to
energy consumption is satisfactory: no change of the
batteries has been needed. However, a few problems
have been encountered. Nodes have been “lost” at times,
probably due to the fact that they were deployed near limit
conditions (low radio signal strength that falls below
reception threshold, maybe due to a weather condition
change). Setting the node activity to high rates has also
tended to degrade performance with time.
• The second deployment was done during autumn 2008 at
the Aubagne (FR) periphery. After a one-day tutorial,
CEREN, a regional centre for fire-fighter formation took
the control of the platform. Ramps of temperature were
experienced close to the sensors to check the correctness
of the alarm detection. CEREN noted that the fire
detection was correctly reported through the wireless
sensor network during their tests.
Figure 2: Wireless sensor nodes in the fire (Gestosa)
The main results of the 4 tests can be summarized by the
following points:
• The importance and great behaviour of our wireless
sensor network reconfiguration capabilities during the loss
of communication
• The relative ease of deployment of such a network and
the complexity of its optimisation
• The need of an efficient link to the data fusion centre
• The real need for this type of monitoring system by firefighters.
The project partners are Epsilon International SA (GR),
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (GR), DHI
Hydroinform A.S. (CZ), National Agricultural Research
Foundation (GR), CSEM (CH), Group 4 Security Services
(GB), Greek Research and Technology Network (GR), Centre
d'Essais et de Recherche de l'ENtente (FR), TECNOMA S.A.
(ES), Associação para o Desenvolvimento da Aerodinâmica
Industrial (PT).
This work was partly funded by the European Union. CSEM
thanks them for their support.
[1] P. Heim, et al., “High Dynamic Range Versatile Front-End for
Vision Systems”, CSEM Scientific Report 2007, page 25
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