Integrated Service & Safety Platform

Traditional fire alarm systems have three main functions: detecting, responding and notify. Although these basic functionalities are the same, different aspects such as size, complexity and current regulations will vary greatly based on where the system are installed, from office buildings, hotels and elementary schools to cruise ships and oil facilities. One of the biggest challenges facing the fire alarm industry today is to keep up with the rapid technological developments in digitalization while meeting the security requirements that apply to such products. Through the ISESAP project, Autronica Fire & Security and SINTEF Digital have started to develop a new fire alarm platform that combines digitized services with the strict security and safety requirements applicable to such systems. This will break new ground in the industry and facilitate a number of new services, e.g. using the large amounts of data collected by thousands of fire sensors in an office building along with machine learning for predictive maintenance of the actual fire installation or 3rd-party services such as energy use optimization and building automation. In order to be able to offer digitized services while safeguarding both security and safety of the system, it is necessary to use various advanced methods and expand the research front within the domain. Model-based methods and simulation will be used to predict whether the solution will meet reliability and performance requirements. Modern communication technologies such as TSN/DetNet will be used in implementation, with the advantage of being based on open standards and using ordinary hardware (COTS). Furthermore, solutions for containerization and real-time systems with multiple levels of criticality will be used so that safety-critical and certified parts of the system can be run on the same computer as non-certified services. To safeguard the security aspects throughout the project, the SafeScrum method developed by SINTEF Digital will be used. The project has done a in-depth work on State-of-the-art within other domains, which are continuously being evaluated for use in this project. Some of the progress in this area will hopefully be published during 2022. The main focus in our next phase will be to run proof of concepts.

The traditional fire alarm system has three main functions: detect, respond and notify. While these basic functionalities are the same, aspects of the system such as size, complexity and regulations will vary in great extent depending on where the fire alarm system is installed; e.g. office buildings, hotels, airports, cruise ships, containers ship and oil rigs. The biggest challenge in the safety industry today is to catch up with technology in a secure and safe manner. Technology developed “yesterday” will not meet the requirements for “tomorrow”, and in the global market there is a constant drive for new features, industry demands and cyber security threats. The future fire alarm system cannot be affected by rapid change in technology or critical components being discontinued. With this project, Autronica Fire and Security is addressing the need to retain and improve adherence to the rigid safety standards of fire detection and the ever more important needs for security. Autronica Fire and Security will be in the forefront of applied research in the safety-critical fire detection domain by investigating the use of new technologies adapted to safety applications. Globally, customers tend to demand low investment costs but may afford a slightly higher operation cost. The ability to provide state-of-the-art fire detection globally and to a great variety of end-users, demands a system which are reliable and intuitive, but also easy to support. This project can enable more dynamic future business models adjusted to each customer.