Video-based Smoke Detection: Possibilities, Techniques, and Challenges

When a fire occurs, minimum detection latency is crucial to minimizing damage and saving lives. Current smoke sensors inherently suffer from the transport delay of the smoke from the fire to the sensor. A video smoke detection system would not have this delay. Further, video is a volume sensor, not a point sensor. A point sensor looks at a point in space. That point may not be affected by smoke or fire, so the smoke would not be detected. A volume sensor potentially monitors a larger area and has much higher probability of successful early detection of smoke or flame.