Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Smart Environment - Early Wildfire Detection using IoT

Hidestål, Carl LU and Zreik, André LU (2020) EITL05 20201
Department of Electrical and Information Technology
Abstract
Problems with extreme weather, such as drought, has increased due to greenhouse emissions.
As one of the consequences to this, forest fires have emerged more frequently on a global
level. This became obvious in Sweden, in the summer of 2018, which has been stated to have
been the worst affected year of forest fires in modern time. In a state investigation of
emergency preparedness and the operational extinguishing work of forest fires, it was stated
several issues with the extinguishing work. One of these issues was the time aspect where the
investigation urged that "the importance of quickly detecting arising fires and early efforts to
extinguish these cannot be emphasized enough".
Today, costly, and unreliable methods are used to... (More)
Problems with extreme weather, such as drought, has increased due to greenhouse emissions.
As one of the consequences to this, forest fires have emerged more frequently on a global
level. This became obvious in Sweden, in the summer of 2018, which has been stated to have
been the worst affected year of forest fires in modern time. In a state investigation of
emergency preparedness and the operational extinguishing work of forest fires, it was stated
several issues with the extinguishing work. One of these issues was the time aspect where the
investigation urged that "the importance of quickly detecting arising fires and early efforts to
extinguish these cannot be emphasized enough".
Today, costly, and unreliable methods are used to monitor large parts of Sweden’s, as well as
the world’s, forests. With the help of new technology this is something that can be changed.
With a system for detecting a forest fires at an early stage, both economic and environmental
benefits can be achieved.
In order to cover the gaps that the current fire detection system has, the project aims to
develop an IoT-based (Internet of Things) system, with the aim of detecting fires in a forest
environment at an early stage and being able to geographically locate the fire. To achieve this
functionality, the system must be connected to a network and equipped with sensors. When
the system alerts, a predetermined route to the nearest unit in the system suitable for
emergency personnel could be sent, as well as an estimated geographical location for the fire
based on triangulation, wind direction and wind strength. This leads to a safer working
environment for the firefighters who extinguish the fires and less damage to the forest, which
makes both forest owners, insurance companies, extinguishing personnel, and society, big
winners.
By taking advantage of the latest technology in communication and power harvesting, it is
possible to create very energy-efficient and self-sustaining units with a long service life that
can, after installation, take care of monitoring the forest environment for a long period.
During the project various fire detection techniques have been tested and compared. For the
need to detect forest fire at a distance, the focus has been on a particle sensor from the sensor
company Sensirion. This sensor has been tested in the field together with the fire department
in north-western Skåne, the conclusion from the field test show that this particle sensor is
able to swiftly detect a fire from 80 metres away. An IoT platform, developed by Sigma
Connectivity and Ericsson, has been tested for this purpose with success. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Hidestål, Carl LU and Zreik, André LU
supervisor
organization
alternative title
Smart Environment - tidig detektion av bränder med IoT
course
EITL05 20201
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Internet of Things, Wildfire, Forest fire, Narrowband-IoT, Particle detection
report number
LU/LTH-EIT 2020-772
language
English
id
9022505
date added to LUP
2020-06-26 16:19:53
date last changed
2020-06-26 16:19:53
@misc{9022505,
  abstract     = {{Problems with extreme weather, such as drought, has increased due to greenhouse emissions.
As one of the consequences to this, forest fires have emerged more frequently on a global
level. This became obvious in Sweden, in the summer of 2018, which has been stated to have
been the worst affected year of forest fires in modern time. In a state investigation of
emergency preparedness and the operational extinguishing work of forest fires, it was stated
several issues with the extinguishing work. One of these issues was the time aspect where the
investigation urged that "the importance of quickly detecting arising fires and early efforts to
extinguish these cannot be emphasized enough".
Today, costly, and unreliable methods are used to monitor large parts of Sweden’s, as well as
the world’s, forests. With the help of new technology this is something that can be changed.
With a system for detecting a forest fires at an early stage, both economic and environmental
benefits can be achieved.
In order to cover the gaps that the current fire detection system has, the project aims to
develop an IoT-based (Internet of Things) system, with the aim of detecting fires in a forest
environment at an early stage and being able to geographically locate the fire. To achieve this
functionality, the system must be connected to a network and equipped with sensors. When
the system alerts, a predetermined route to the nearest unit in the system suitable for
emergency personnel could be sent, as well as an estimated geographical location for the fire
based on triangulation, wind direction and wind strength. This leads to a safer working
environment for the firefighters who extinguish the fires and less damage to the forest, which
makes both forest owners, insurance companies, extinguishing personnel, and society, big
winners.
By taking advantage of the latest technology in communication and power harvesting, it is
possible to create very energy-efficient and self-sustaining units with a long service life that
can, after installation, take care of monitoring the forest environment for a long period.
During the project various fire detection techniques have been tested and compared. For the
need to detect forest fire at a distance, the focus has been on a particle sensor from the sensor
company Sensirion. This sensor has been tested in the field together with the fire department
in north-western Skåne, the conclusion from the field test show that this particle sensor is
able to swiftly detect a fire from 80 metres away. An IoT platform, developed by Sigma
Connectivity and Ericsson, has been tested for this purpose with success.}},
  author       = {{Hidestål, Carl and Zreik, André}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Smart Environment - Early Wildfire Detection using IoT}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}