Analog fire sensor

• US 4,727,359 A
• Filed: 03/28/1986
• Issued: 02/23/1988
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/1985
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hochiki Kabushiki Kaisha
• Original Assignee: Hochiki Corporation
• Inventors: Maruyama, Masaki, Yuchi, Sadataka
• Primary Examiner(s): Crosland, Donnie L.
• Application Number:
  US06/845,572
• Time in Patent Office: 697 Days
• Field of Search: 340/518, 340/505, 340/501, 340/506, 340/511, 340/514, 340/588, 340/589, 340/870.16, 340/870.17, 340/870.21, 340/825.07, 340/825.08, 340/825.11 , 340/825.54
• US Class Current: 340/518
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 26/002 only replying the state of the sensor

Abstract

An analog fire detecting system in which a plurality of sensors produce analog data corresponding to a physical state such as temperature, smoke density, etc. relevant to a fire condition. The values of such analog data are compared with a predetermined threshold level, and if the threshold level is exceeded the analog data is transmitted to a central station in response to a polling signal therefrom. A CPU in the central station determines, from the analog data from the sensors, if there is a possibility of a fire and if so makes a predictive calculation of the remaining time until a fire condition will be reached. An alarm is given when such predicted time falls below a preset interval.

Claims

1. A fire detection system for detecting a fire condition in any of a plurality of supervised regions, comprising:

a plurality of sensors respectively located in such regions and which produce analog data corresponding to a physical state relevant to a fire condition, each such sensor transmitting the analog data produced thereby in response to a polling signal received thereby only if such data exceeds a predetermined threshold level; and

a central signal station adapted to poll said sensors sequentially and to receive the analog data transmitted thereby, and which makes a predictive calculation of the time remaining until outbreak of a fire on the basis of the analog data so received.

2. A fire detection system as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of said sensors comprises a data signal transmission section for transmitting the analog data and a calling discriminating section which enables the transmission section to transmit the analog data when a polling signal is received from the central signal station.

3. A fire detection system as claimed in claim 1, in which the central signal station comprises a CPU for making the predictive fire calculation, and does not initiate such calculation for analog data received from a sensor unless such data exceeds a predetermined calculation starting level.

4. A fire detection system as claimed in claim 3, in which said sensor threshold level is lower than said calculation starting time.

5. An analog fire sensor for use in a fire detection system as claimed in claim 1, comprising:

an analog sensor section for producing analog data corresponding to the magnitude of a physical state relevant to a fire condition;

a comparing section for comparing the value of the analog data output from the analog sensor section with a predetermined sensor threshold level; and

a data signal transmission section for transmitting the analog data in response to a polling signal received thereby when such data exceeds said threshold level.

6. An analog fire sensor as claimed in claim 5, further comprising an average calculating section which samples the analog data at a predetermined sampling period and calculates the average value of the sampled data;

and wherein said signal transmission section transmits the average sampled data in response to a polling signal only when such average exceeds said predetermined threshold level.

7. An analog fire sensor as claimed in claim 6, wherein said average calculating section sequentially calculates the moving average values of the sampled analog data.

8. An analog fire sensor as claimed in claim 7, wherein said average calculating section further calculates a simple average value from the plural moving average values.