Modern fire safety engineering for the future built environment

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Modern fire safety engineering for the future
built environment
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Kings Cross
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Emergency Responders

• Human
• Fire stewards, Building management
• Firefighters
• Remote management / experts

• Active (detection and suppression) systems
• Detectors, Alarms, PA systems
• Evacuation direction indicators
• Fire Extinguishers
• Sprinklers
• Air Vents
• Fans
• Pressurisation systems
• Computer based control systems

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FireGrid Vision
Grid
1000s of sensors gateway processing
Emergency Responders
KBS and Planning
Remote Experts
Maps, models, scenarios
Super-real-time simulation (HPC)
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FireGrid Modes

• Design Mode
• Modelling
• Scenarios
• Emergency Response Mode Phase 1
• Sensing
• Transmission
• Analysis / Decision / Phase 1 Response
• Emergency Response Mode Phase 1
• Modelling / Simulation
• Forecast
• Analysis / Decision / Phase 2 Response

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Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire
Traffic stopped
Fans turned on in wrong direction!
Enhancement of smoke and fire
Intervention made difficult by poor initial
response
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Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire FireGrid
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FireGrid Architecture
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Technology integrations
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A series of projects

• FireGrid Consortium (EPSRC funded network)
• Bringing together the parties needed to make the
  vision a reality
• Deliver workshops, community building, research
  framework
• Advanced research topics - EPSRC
• Exploit the research opportunities provided by
  the technology
• Deliver research papers, better models,
  technologies, etc.
• FireGrid Prototype - (DTI Technology Programme?)
• Undertake the research needed to integrate the
  core technologies
• Deliver. research papers, technical
  understanding, FireGrid Mk 1
• Deployment demonstrator (Industry, DTI, EU?)
• Undertake the RD needed to deploy the system in
  practice
• Deliver deployed FireGrid systems, commercial
  framework

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Grid Research Issues

• Sensor-guided simulation
• Integration of sensor data
• active updating of data filters for key events
• verification w.r.t. fire signatures
• Indexing of scenarios
• Integration of CC system
• Dynamic discovery of resources
• Pre-emptive scheduling service
• Co-ordination of all remote resources people
• Security analysis for a deployed emergency
  response system
• QoS analysis for a deployed emergency response
  system

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Fire Simulation Field Models

• Solves transient equations of motion
• High Resolution
• Includes most of necessary physics
• Adequate accuracy
• Very computer intensive unless coarse grid is
  used
• Not suitable for super-real-time computations

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The FireGrid Solution

• Computations coupled with sensor input
• Field Models initialize the computations for
  short periods
• Simple functions (i.e. polynomials) used to
  reproduce the details of flow and temperature
  gradients
• yC1xn C2xn-1 C3xn-2
• Functions generated by initialization
  computations (y)
• Constants defined by sensor feedback (Cn)
• Constant sensor feedback until constants converge
• Result Super-real-time without loosing details

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Firegrid Sensor Network Research Issues

• Potentially gt10000 sensors distributed across
  Buildings and Plant
• Many different types of sensors (e.g. smoke, CO,
  Temp, etc)
• Type and range of information different in scale
• Limited in power, computational capacity and
  memory
• Conventional MACs and protocols not appropriate
• Security
• Physical security of communications (i.e.
  multiple routes)
• Authentication of data (i.e. false alarms)
• Data rates from individual sensors modest
• Updates 0.1-1s interval with a few kilobits per
  sensor
• Processing and data mining of sensor data
• Detection of subtle changes in environment
• Identifying key events for command and control

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Technical requirements

• Self-configuring and healing infrastructures
• Survivability in dynamic environment without
  infrastructure
• Automated assessment/exposure of uncertainty to
  focus other assets
• Localisation of nodes
• Deployment
• Access dangerous/inaccessible locations
• Achieve 3D spatial density
• Adaptive signal processing, data filtering,
  analysis
• In network processing to address data overload
  and energy scarceness
• Combining and interpreting in the context of
  other data sources

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Self-Configuring Routing Control

• Linked Cluster Ad Hoc Routing Algorithm
• Network self-organizes under a variety of
  delivery mechanisms without prior knowledge of
  network
• Adapts to mobility, channel effects, node
  destruction or failure
• Energy-aware routing reconfiguration
• Control Architecture
• Autonomously establishes maintains the sensor
  network
• Supports range of operationalscenarios
• Enables low-overhead security

Cluster Routing Algorithm
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FireGrid Command Control

• Draws on DARPA/AFRL/QinetiQ/EPSRC work on I-X
• Operational Area Map and 3D View Front-ends (for
  free)
• Collaborative Multi-agent Framework
  (humans/systems)
• Bridge between Grid Services and Emergency
  Responders
• Grid Services and Semantic Grid Services
  Integration
• Grid Services Composition and Use
• Grid Fire Simulation Steering
• Show utility of Simulation Results to decide
  intervention
• Impact assessment of emerging situation and grid
  results
• Reacts to issues and events
• Plan communication, delegation and dynamic repair

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Core Team

• Institute of Infrastructure Environment (IIE),
  UoE
• Asif Usmani, Jose Torero, Stephen Welch, Dougal
  Drysdale (modelling of fire and structures)
• Institute of Digital communications (IDCOM), UoE
• Steve Mclaughlin (sensors and communications)
• Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute
  (AIAI), UoE
• Austin Tate, Stephen Potter (knowledge-based
  systems and planning)
• NeSC and EPCC, Edinburgh
• Malcolm Atkinson, Dave Berry, Rob Baxter, Mark
  Bull, Arthur Trew (Grid and HPC)
• Dept. of Civil Environmental Eng., Imperial
  College
• Bassam Izzuddin, Ahmad Elghazouli (structural
  mechanics sofware)

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Support Team
Core
Team
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Next Steps

• Bid to EPSRC on Sensor Grid integration
• Build on existing work
• Explore FireGrid-specific issues
• Bid to EPSRC on Sensor Design
• Sensors in Extreme Environments A New
  Generation Fire Sensors
• Bid to EPSRC on structural testing
• Coupled Testing and Computation in study of
  laterally restrained heated RC slabs
• FireGrid Prototype
• Undertake the RD needed to integrate the core
  technologies

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Thank you

• http//www.see.ed.ac.uk/firegrid/