• 한국안전학회지
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.69-75
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• 2022

Fire-alarm systems are safety equipment that facilitate rapid evacuation and early suppression in case of fire. It is highly desirable that fire-alarm systems have low false-alarm rates and are thus reliable. Until now, researchers have attempted to improve detector performance by applying new technologies such as IoT. To this end, IoT-based fire-detection systems have been developed. However, due to scarcity of large-scale operational data, researchers have barely studied malfunctioning in fire-alarm systems or attempted to reduce false-alarm rates in these systems. In this study, we analyzed false-alarm rates of smoke/temperature detectors and unwanted fire-alarm signal patterns at K institution, where Korea's largest IoT-based fire-detection system operates. After analyzing the fire alarm occurrences at the institution for five years, we inferred that the IoT-based fire-detection system showed lower false-alarm rates compared to the automatic fire-detection equipment. We analyzed the detection pattern by dividing it into two parts: normal operation and unwanted fire alarms. When a specific signal pattern was filtered out, the false-alarm rate was reduced to 66.9% in the smoke detector and to 46.9% in the temperature detector.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제37권3호
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• pp.16-23
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• 2022

This study aims to provide a fundamental material for identifying fire and no-fire signals using the detection signal characteristics of IoT-based fire-detection systems. Unlike analog automatic fire-detection equipment, IoT-based fire-detection systems employ wireless digital communication and are connected to a server. If a detection signal exceeds a threshold value, the measured values are saved to a server within seconds. This study was conducted with the detection data saved from seven fire accidents that took place in traditional markets from 2020 to 2021, in addition to 233 fire alarm data that have been saved in the K institute from 2016 to 2020. The saved values demonstrated variable and continuous VC-Signals. Additionally, we discovered that the detection signals of two fire accidents in the K institution had a VC-Signal. In the 233 fire alarms that took place over the span of 5 years, 31% of smoke alarms and 30% of temperature alarms demonstrated a VC-Signal. Therefore, if we selectively recognize VC-Signals as fire signals, we can reduce about 70% of false alarms.