WILDFIRE: Enhanced PIR sensors for remote wildfire detection and prevention

野火在世界范围内造成灾难性破坏，占全球碳排放量的20%。气候变化加剧了这一问题的恶化。在美国、澳大利亚、西班牙等地发生的异常严重的火灾夺去了数百人的生命，造成了价值10亿美元的损失。野火在不习惯这个问题的国家爆发。北欧国家在2018年的燃烧面积增加了200倍。甚至英国也受到了严重影响（例如，2018年的《冬山》）。我们提出了一种新的解决方案，用于早期发现最可预测的火灾：那些由于电线故障而发生的火灾-比大多数火灾更具破坏性，因为它们经常发生在大风中。在加州6年多的时间里，一家公用事业公司的电力线走廊发生了1500起野火，其中一些是有史以来最具破坏性的。在西班牙，1985年至2010年间，有3185起火灾是由电线引起的。全球电力线运营商现在面临着严重的财务负债（20亿美元），为可靠有效的检测系统创造了一个巨大的市场（100亿英镑）。公用事业公司已经评估了传感器（基于可见光/热成像仪），但还没有大规模采用，因为它们部署成本太高，需要人工监控，而且只有在火灾发展到不可阻挡的规模时才会检测到。公司需要能够在火灾发生后的最初几分钟内检测到火灾的技术，而火灾仍然占地不到1英亩，并且消防员有机会在火灾造成大规模破坏之前将其扑灭。这是一个挑战。许多野火发生在远离电力和电信基础设施的偏远地区，因此低功耗、可靠性和电力/通信自治是关键。我们提出的传感系统将使用低成本，世界领先的热释电红外（PIR）探测器（Pyreos）和低成本，高效的非成像辐射收集器（Tethir）。PIR被广泛应用于油气行业的火灾/火焰探测系统中。Tethir的光学将提供一个可用的探测范围（1-2km）与现有的探测器性能，并进一步发展更好的探测器。该项目将开发一种可销售的市场入门产品，我们预计在原型演示后的前5年内，电力公司的销售额将达到10万英镑，随着我们将探测能力扩展到其他野火原因（如纵火），销售额将进一步增加。尖端技术与伦敦帝国国王学院两位世界领先的pir和野火专家的结合是这一发展成功的关键，为英国带来了重要的财富创造机会，同时帮助解决了一个严重的全球性问题。

Wildfires cause catastrophic damage worldwide, accounting for 20% of global carbon emissions. The problem, exacerbated by climate change, is deteriorating. Unusually severe fires in USA, Australia, Spain etc, have claimed hundreds of lives, causing damage worth US$Bn's. Wildfires are breaking out in countries unaccustomed to the problem. Northern European countries experienced a 200x increase in area burned in 2018\. Even the UK is being badly affected (e.g. Winter Hill -- 2018).We propose a new solution for early detection of the most predictable fires: those occurring due to power line failure - more damaging than most because they often occur in high winds. In California over 6 years, 1,500 wildfires started in the power line corridors of one utility company, some of the most devastating on record. In Spain, 3,185 fires were started by power lines between 1985-2010\. Power line operators worldwide now face severe financial liabilities (US$Bns), creating a large market (£M100's) for reliable and effective detection systems.Utility companies have assessed sensors (based on visible/thermal imagers) but have not adopted any at scale because they are too expensive to rollout, require human monitoring and only detect fires once they have grown to an unstoppable size. Companies need technologies that can detect fires in the first minutes after ignition, while they still occupy <1 acre and when firefighters have a chance of extinguishing the fire before it causes extensive damage. This is challenging. Many wildfires occur in remote areas far from electricity and telecommunications infrastructure, so low power consumption, reliability and power/comms-autonomy are key.The sensing system we propose will use low cost, world-leading pyroelectric infra-red (PIR) detectors (Pyreos) with low cost, highly-efficient non-imaging radiation-collectors (Tethir). PIR's are widely used in fire/flame detection systems for the oil-and-gas sector. Tethir's optics will give a usable detection range (1-2km) with existing detector performances and much further with the development of better detectors. The project will develop a saleable market-entry product and we predict sales of £M10's to power companies over the first 5 years after prototype demonstration, with further sales as we extend the detection capability to other wildfire causes (e.g. arson). The combination of cutting edge technologies with two world-leading UK experts in PIRs and wildfires at Imperial and Kings College London is key to the success of this development and brings the UK a significant wealth-creation opportunity while helping to solve a serious world-wide problem.