Forest Monitoring and Early Fire Detection

Overview

The recent fires in wooded areas throughout the world have highlighted the need to provide early fire detection and control methods. This has lead environment controlling agencies to offer systems which can remotely monitor the situation in forests and rapidly detect and report the presence of forest fires.

Among the difficulties that automation solution providers encounter, are the installation of power sources in forests as well as reaching to cameras and other devices in hard to wire areas under harsh conditions. As is normally the case, solar power panels are being widely deployed in forests as green energy sources, which generate 24VDC power. However, additional power outlets should be used in order to power standard 48VDC cameras, detectors, wireless APs, etc. 

To overcome the above described challenges, JetNet 3810G series booster PoE switches were selected to be used for the wired network construction. The patented 12~24V booster design on the PoE ports enabled the switch to easily receive 24V power from solar panels, and then automatically transfer it to 48V to power up the IP cameras installed on poles as well as the JetWave wireless AP. This, as a result, eliminated the cost of installing additional power converters.

Simultaneously, through these PoE booster ports, the connected devices were capable to send the captured video and fire signal data to the switch. Upon receiving the video streams, JetNet 3810G uplinked it to the NVR via the gigabit connection for high speed video recording.

To complete the task of long distance transmission to the control room, JetWave 2610 series 802.11a Wireless APs were deployed.  Using Intel TDMA technology, the access point assured up to 40KM wireless video and other data transmission without compromising the bandwidth. 

With an alarm relay function on the switch, users in the control room were aware of any link or power failures, and were able to quickly recover the problem. Additionally, the hardened enclosure of the switches and the wireless APs and their wide operating temperature design allowed users to withstand dust, humidity and wind in the forests and guaranteed reliable and early fire detection and control in industrial applications.