About EmberEye
Ember Eye is a home bushfire sprinkler system. It is a sprinkler system interconnected with thermal imaging cameras and controlled with a computer vision algorithm. The system is able to autonomously detect embers and actuate the appropriate sprinkler head to put out the potential flame. It is able to do this by splitting the property into grids and mapping each grid to a sprinkler. When the camera detects an ember in a grid, it is able to correlate the grid to a sprinkler and extinguish the fire. EmberEye also uploads weather information to the RFS database, via a satellite link. This additional weather data allows for improved bushfire modelling, ultimately allowing firefighters to better manage resources.
This system has been developed under and vetted by both engineering mentors at Jacobs Engineering and academic staff at the UNSW ARC Training Centre for Fire Safety. Under their supervision, the system has been modelled and tested in software such as the Fire Dynamics Simulator and Pipe Flow Expert. The results of these simulations found that our proposed ‘grid’ method to extinguish fires used 33% less water than competitors on the market, while extinguishing embers at a fast rate. A prototype of the system was constructed to validate the simulation results. It was successfully tested with a blow torch and limited hydraulic head for a realistic approximation of an ember attack scenario. Since testing, EmberEye won the UNSW engineering prototyping competition from a panel of expert judges and the ‘grid’ methodology of extinguishing fires is now the subject of a research grant at the ARC training Centre for Fire Safety. Both cases, add weight to the feasibility and industry intrigue into our product.
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