An OCARI-Based Wireless Sensor Network for Heat Measurements during Outdoor Fire Experiments

Abstract

This study presents a new wireless measurement system for outdoor fire experiments based on an OCARI wireless sensor network (WSN). The open-source radio communication OCARI stack (‘Open Communication Protocol for Ad Hoc Reliable Industrial Instrumentation’) allows to overcome the limitations of the previous wireless solutions for fire measurements, especially those based on proprietary systems, such as Zigbee, wherein users cannot control energy consumption and timestamping. This paper presents the design of an Atmel/ARM-based platform compatible with the wireless OCARI stack, adapted to record and communicate data from heat transducers—namely, a K-type thermocouple and heat fluxmeter. A 5-node WSN using heat sensors faces a 10 m 2 natural fire of excelsior (pine wood) in outdoor conditions. Measurements from the OCARI-WSN were compared with the same measurements simultaneously recorded on a datalogger, a standard wired solution in fire science. Thus, six fire experiments were performed for different fuel loads, and the incident heat radiation varies with the fire size under variable wind conditions. The technological breakdown of timestamping identified in previous low-energy consumption and low-cost wireless systems is overcome by the present solution.