Technology and modus operandi
The nature of smoke
Smoke is unpredictable. Dynamic. It constantly changes its kinematics, geometry, color, intensity and visibility in manners very different from physical objects. Very limited assumptions can be made about its size and distance since it can be located anywhere between the camera and the background.
This is why traditional, albeit tweaked, object tracking and motion detection algorithms are not feasible.
Flame mysteries
Similar to smoke, flames are not comparable to physical objects. Shape and intensity varies rapidly as does size, both in absolute and relative terms. The newly developed flame detection algorithms take all this into account. And more.
They blend statistical, spatial, structural and temporal features in clever ways.
Real fire
It is tempting to develop (and test) video smoke detectors using synthetic smoke. SAF3 is however developed using video from real fires. The reason is to make sure the algorithms are developed using the most realistic input as possible.
As a result, SAF3 is well-suited for detecting early fires. The flame detection also detects both large, explosive flames as well as small and smouldering.
Adaptivity
To cope with the vast range of deployment environments and to mimimize calibration cost, SAF3 has an adaptive sensitivity control function.
It tunes the sensitivity spatially and temporally based on the normal activity in the scene in order to maximize sensitivity while keeping false alarms few.
Multi-aspect analysis
Due to the huge differences in smoke and flame characteristics, there's no one, single, silver bullet algorithm that copes with all kinds at all times.
That's why SAF3 includes and fuses multiple specialized algorithms that, combined, cover a wider range of smoke and flames.
Warning/Alarm events
SAF3 contains warnings and alarms for a wide range of events. Typically the alarm events are used for triggering sound and/or light indicators or are sent into an alarm system or VMS.
The sensitivity and reactivity can be tuned to suit many different environments, from clean to rough.
