Early detection and notification together with precise evacuation guidance are indispensable for the safe evacuation of people during the occurrence of a building fire. The National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster has investigated the development and improvement of this series of safety techniques and Technology.
Existing types of fire sensors encounter problems which include the frequent occurrence of false alarms and lowering of reliability when they are made with high sensitivity in order to detect fires quickly. In order to overcome these problems, the Institute has developed an intelligent fire detection system which uses a multi-element fire detector and a fuzzy expert system to reduce the number of false alarms and determine the status of a fire quickly and accurately.
Smoke, heat, and carbon monoxide
based three element fire detector
It is necessary to be able to lead many people actively from complicated spaces where the ways are complex and difficult to know such as underground shopping malls and large shopping centers within a short period of time. The Institute has conducted research relating to new guidance technology such as leading type of stroboscopic exit signs, and visibility of the signs in fire smoke.
There are many types of disasters which plague our daily lives such as earthquakes, damage from storms and floods, and the like. It is important to improve the mobility of rescue services and networks of wide area information in order to reduce the extent of damage caused by these disasters. The National research Institute of Fire and Disaster is engaged in research related to the development of supporting technology for this purpose.
When a disaster occurs or there is a possibility of a disaster occurring, an outdoor public address speakers are set up for the purpose of communicating emergency information to people over wide areas outdoors. Since these speakers are dispersed over wide areas, it Is sometimes difficult for people to understand the content of what is being said as the speakers will interfere with each other. As a result, the Institute has conducted research Into the phenomena of voice overlap, and has done basic research on technology that improves intelligibility.
Positioning of a public address speaker
It is not easy to find people who have been buried under the rubble caused by a major earthquake. The Institute has thus developed a small sized, highly accurate device to help with such searches. It determines the existence of a victim by detecting the carbon dioxide Included in human breathing that dissipates in extremely small quantities out of the rubble
A device to search for victims buried
in rubble by detecting carbon dioxide
The turn out of ambulances has been increasing ear by year. A large number of ambulances are required when a disaster that covers a wide area occurs. However, there is a limit to the increase in ambulances, so that it is necessary to consider how ambulances should be arranged to be used efficiently. The Institute has studied theoretically optimal ways in which their use may be arranged under a variety of different circumstances.