Flame Detection and Wireless Communications in Consumer Appliances

Objective

The objective of this project is to determine if wireless fire/smoke alarm technology can be used in homes to further reduce the threat of loss of life in residential fires by alerting consumers to potential fire scenarios as quickly as possible. Early detection at flame ignition can improve smoke alarm signaling and greatly reduce notification times. Project tasks are as follows:

• Investigate various suitable detection technologies and methods to allow earlier detection of flaming fires in a small appliance, such as a toaster oven.
• Investigate whether wireless technology, previously developed by Naval Research Laboratory or similar technology used to signal smoke alarms for earlier fire detection of appliance based fires, can be used to decrease the detection time of a fire.
• Demonstrate proof of concept by incorporating flame detection and wireless smoke/fire alarm technology and methods into a home appliance.
• If the integration of a fire/flame detector and wireless alarm signaling capability in a small appliance is successful, use it to form a fire detection system with the previously developed wireless smoke alarms. Flames detected in the appliance will cause the system to wirelessly transmit a signal to the smoke alarms in the vicinity, initiating an alarm condition in all of the wireless smoke alarms in the system.

Conclusions and Recommendations

This effort has shown that incorporating a flame detection system in an appliance will cause a wireless smoke alarm to sound almost immediately to a flaming fire in the appliance. The reduction in alarm times due to the wireless smoke alarm and the flame detection system should increase reaction times to fires of this nature and allow additional egress time for building occupants. Additional testing to compare the smoke alarm times with and without the flame detection system in the appliance should be conducted.

An extended operational and false alarm monitoring test series is highly recommended to quantify the actual improved capabilities of these modifications. This concept can be expanded to other heat producing appliances to detect fires within the appliance and transmit an RF signal to a wireless smoke alarm.