A LabVIEW-based fire monitoring software using multi-criteria AHP approach for detecting geolocation of wildfire

Abstract

High Conservation Value Forests or botanical parks are critical forested areas that need to be appropriately managed and protected against fire, as they contain large concentrations of biodiversity-which includes endangered or threatened species–which are very sensitive to fire outbreaks. Thus, early detection and rapid responses are so important in combating and containing fire in these areas. As such, a lot of innovative methods are used for the containment and combating of fire. This paper proposes a stand-alone program called FireLocator created by LabVIEW that can detect in real-time the geolocation and behavior of fires by superposition of detection areas through state-of-the-art multispectral infrared detectors using wireless transmitters and mathematical modeling algorithms at a very early stage with maximum spatial resolution. In this context, four alternative models for the optimum positions of detectors in pilot control area are analyzed with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Experimental results demonstrated that preferred alternative model for FireLocator program has the highest percentage with 38.22% based on the AHP algorithm that validates the model used in this study. Moreover, FireLocator outperformed other fire monitoring systems and provided high spatial resolution (up to 3 m) which assisted in determining fire behavior and the geolocation of the fire in a minimum pilot area of ~ 3598.9 square meters.