Update and Overview on the NFPA Requirements and Testing for Electronic Safety Equipment Bruce H. Varner. Chair NFPA Technical Committee on Electronic Safety Equipment Fire Chief (Retired) Santa Rosa, CA
Fire Service Perspective on Electronic Stuff The Firefighter transparent to the individual automatic on, very accurate, no added weight, no battery problems The Incident Commander in background until needed (or desired) very accurate Alerts for crew separation [more than 10 ft] Lack of motion Distress (Mayday) alarm High heat Loss of contact
Fire Service Perspective on Electronic Stuff The Fire Chief very very accurate, low cost, low maintenance, easy implementation, transparent to user, certified to a standard, price is the price no surprises, product does what it is supposed to do, life time warranty (well at least a decent warranty)
The real world The majority of operational fire fighter deaths occur at a fire scene during the first 20 minutes within 20 ft. of an exit point. There is with a single IC and 15 or less personal at the scene. RF signal is a problem in buildings for Voice Data Location
How do we assure that it all works? Product standards Testing ( 3 rd Party) Certification
NFPA Technical Committee on Electronic Safety Equipment is under the Fire and Emergency Services Protective Clothing and Equipment Project This Committee shall have primary responsibility for documents on the design, performance, testing, and certification of electronic safety equipment used by fire and emergency services personnel during emergency incident operations, and shall also have primary responsibility for documents on the selection, care, and maintenance of electronic safety equipment
Technical Committee on Electronic Safety Equipment NFPA 1982, Standard on Personal Alert Safety Systems (PASS), 2007 Edition (revision 2013) NFPA 1801, Standard on Thermal Imagers for the Fire Service 2010 Edition (revision 2012) NFPA 1800, Standard on Electronic Safety Equipment for Emergency Services (development)
Examples of testing required for Electronic Safety Equipment Heat Resistance 500 o F (260 o C) for 5 minutes Impact Acceleration Dropped on each surface from 3 meters Cable pull out 89N force Vibration 3 hours Corrosion 48 hr Salt Spray
Examples of testing required for a Electronic Safety Equipment Product Tumble Test (Durability) heated, immersed in water chilled, immersed in water tumbled 30 minutes, immersed in water.
Examples of testing required for a Electronic Safety Equipment Product Heat and Flame test 10 seconds at 1500 2102 o F (815 1115 o C) Other testing specific to particular product performance Product tested in intended use
Transmission Quality Proposed Transmission Quality Tests Tests are based on the five building types as described in NFPA 220, Standard on Types of Building Construction. The same tests will be completed in test fixtures built to model each of those five building types. NIST has developed some testing solutions that will be shared by William Young in his presentation
NIST Publications of Interest Thermal Environment for Electronic Equipment Used by First Responders, Performance of Thermal Exposure Sensors in Personal Alert Safety System (PASS) Devices, Testing of Portable Radios in a Fire Fighting Environment,
Suite of Proposed Imaging Performance Metrics and Test Methods for Fire Service Thermal Imaging Cameras Francine Amon*, Andrew Lock, and Nelson Bryner Fire Research Division, Building and Fire Research Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology, MD, USA BACKGROUND A growing number of first responders are purchasing infrared cameras (thermal imagers). Thermal imagers provide critical information for many firefighting operations: size up, track fire growth, locate victims & egress routes, overhaul, etc Standardized thermal imaging performance metrics and test methods are proposed for inclusion in a new Standard on Thermal Imagers for the Fire Service (NFPA Draft 1801). A relatively simple method of determining whether a design robustness test has adversely affected the image quality of a TIC Image Recognition Procedure Think it will pass? Environmental Temperature Stress Immersion/Leakage Vibration Impact-Acceleration Corrosion, Heat Resistance Torture Test GOALS Overall Goal: To develop a suite of imaging performance metrics for thermal imagers used by the fire service that are meaningful, useful, and scientifically defensible. There are two categories of performance metrics: - pass/fail criterion based on image quality for design robustness tests (e.g., immersion, vibration, heat ). - Stand-alone image quality metrics for image as presented to user on display. Equal areas for T 2 and T max 25 o C < T 2 < T max Contrast Large area contrast measurements determine whether the TIC is capable of producing sufficient contrast for the user to identify objects of interest such as victims and potential fire hazards. Bars ignored for large area contrast measurement Contrast = 2 /Bitdepth T sur = 25 o C, ± 1 o C (ambient) APPROACH Collect Information: - Workshop on Thermal Imaging Research Needs for First Responders, held Dec. 2004. - Survey of existing standards, literature, test reports, full- and laboratory-scale experiments. Propose Performance Metrics and Test Methods: - Consider operating environment (e.g. humidity, heat, nature of desired targets). - Select metrics and test conditions that reflect needs of fire service. Effective Temperature Range ETR test measures thermal imager s ability to see intermediate temperatures when extreme temperatures are also in the field of view. ETR = T max 25 o C 25 o C < T 2 < T max T bar = 30 o C, ± 1 o C ( T = 5 o C) Std. committee determines T max value T sur = 25 o C, ± 1 o C (ambient) T = 30 o C Nonuniformity Nonuniformity is a measure of the variation of the TIC s response to a uniform test target. NU 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 T = 100 o C ASi BST T = 200 o C VOx Mode Shift 0 100 200 300 TEMPERATURE ( C) T = 260 o C MTF Modulation Transfer Function Spatial Resolution Spatial resolution is a measure of the amount of detail in an image. noise floor 5 o Slanted Edge The thermal sensitivity test measures the smallest temperature difference that the TIC is capable of resolving. The thermal sensitivity test method is still under development. Pass/Fail Criteria Human perception testing on degraded thermal images of fire hazards. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Funds for this project have been provided by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the United States Fire Administration (USFA), the Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES), NIST (AFST, and NIST (ATP). *Contact Francine Amon: francine.amon@nist.gov, 1-301-975-4913, or Nelson Bryner, nelson.bryner@nist.gov, 1-301-975-6868 Fax: 1-301-975-4647, www.bfrl.nist.gov noise floor CTF Contrast Transfer Function noise floor Simulated example: 80 % success in identifying fire hazard Probability of success 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 Thermal Sensitivity 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 Contrast Hypothetical case: TIC shall be capable of producing contrast between 0.5 and 0.75
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