ENIAC - prosjekt SAFESENS, Sensor technologies for enhanced safety and security of buildings and its occupants

During our lives, both privately and professionally, we are exposed to a multitude of hazardous situations; most of the time we are not aware of the danger until is too late. A clear example is the inhalation of smoke and toxic gases due to indoor fires, which affect more than 100,000 people in Europe every year. Many of the existing fire safety systems are designed to detect and respond only to smoke and heat. However, these elements are mainly present during the latter stages of the fire cycle when the silent gas killers (such as carbon monoxide) have been already released. In addition, current fire cells are based on expensive optical detectors, have large form factor and do not provide information about the location of people in the flaming building. There is thus a direct societal need for safety systems equipped with ultra-sensitive, reliable gas sensors (for early fire detection), accurate presence detection technology (for counting remaining occupants in the building) and which are low cost and low power. The main objective of the SAFESENS project is to obtain earlier and more reliable fire detection in combination with accurate occupancy detection by co-integrating multiple gas sensor and presence detection technologies in both building safety sensors and personal monitors. SAFESENS will demonstrate and validate the developed sensor technologies under two demonstrators: (1) a fire safety system composed of multiple wireless gas and presence detection sensors and (2) a multimodal wristband able to monitor first responder vital signs and indoor locations. The Norwegian partners will contribute with the development of a carbon monoxide optical sensor for early fire detection, which is based on a new type of micromechanical optical modulator. In the course of the project SINTEF and NEO have made a demonstrator of an optical CO sensor based on a multiline Fabry-Perot filter and a thermal light source. The demonstrator has been tested in the lab and also in simulated fire tests at Minimax in Germany. The sensor had rms noise corresponding to 2-4 ppm of CO, but due to thermal drift, the detection limit was higher than this, in the range of some tens of ppm. A new batch of Fabry-Perot modulators is planned with optimized optical coatings with the aim of improving the sensitivity further, as well as stabilizing the sensor against thermal drift.

During our lives, both privately and professionally, we are exposed to a multitude of hazardous situations; most of the time we are not aware of the danger until is too late. A clear example is the inhalation of smoke and toxic gases due to indoor fires, which affect more than 100,000 people in Europe every year. Many of the existing fire safety systems are designed to detect and respond only to smoke and heat. However, these elements are mainly present during the latter stages of the fire cycle when the silent gas killers have been already released. In addition, current fire cells are based on expensive optical detectors, have large form factor and do not provide information about the location of people in the flaming building. There is thus a direct so cietal need for safety systems equipped with ultra-sensitive, reliable gas sensors (for early fire detection), accurate presence detection technology (for counting remaining occupants in the building) and which are low cost and low power. The main object ive of the SAFESENS project is to obtain earlier and more reliable fire detection in combination with accurate occupancy detection by co-integrating multiple gas sensor and presence detection technologies in both building safety sensors and personal monit ors. SAFESENS will demonstrate and validate the developed sensor technologies under two demonstrators: (1) a fire safety system composed of multiple wireless gas and presence detection sensors and (2) a multimodal wristband able to monitor first responde r vital signs and indoor locations.