Hello, welcome to NCSU ECE Senior Design Team 47!

Project Background & Need: 

In August 2023 dry conditions and high winds destroyed the town of Lahaina on Maui. 116 lives were lost. Thousands of people became homeless overnight. Toxic materials were released into the air and soil and the ocean. There was severe trauma to the community. The fire destroyed cellular and other communications systems so community leaders and first responders were largely unaware of the severity and speed of the fires until it was too late. Climate change and other factors have increased the frequency and intensity of these types of fires across the globe, not just in Hawaiʻi. Resilient and low cost fire detection/reporting systems can play an important role in saving lives and property by communicating the presence of fire at an early stage when it can still be contained. 

Problem Description/Requirement (high-level features for end-product): 

A fire detection/reporting module should be low cost and solar powered so they can be deployed widely and easily. Such a system should have the ability to trigger alerts based on the presence of infrared and visible light with the spectral characteristics associated with fire, or triggered manually when a fire is observed. The system should function on any available modality including wireless ethernet, cellular, LoRa, and satellite, and must have the ability to tie into government consoles, 911 dispatch centers, etc.,media networks and also be able to report automatically to social media and public access websites. Itʻs important that satellite communications be available in the event of cellular network failure, as occurred in Lahaina.

See our pitch video below!

Final System Architecture