Patent ID: 6289331
Filing Date: 2001-09-11
Classification: G06Q,G08B,Y10S

Abstract:
A fire fighting control system comprising:a. a surveillance craft including: (i) an imaging device, (ii) a controller coupled to the imaging device, and (iii) a communication circuit coupled to the controller;b. a fire control headquarters having: (i) a computer control system including a display system, a control program memory that stores a control program, and a database memory that stores data characterizing predefined fire control parameters for selected geographic regions of the earth, (ii) a neural network processor programmed to analyze image signals and detect and characterize fires in the captured image, (iii) a first communication link between the computer control system and the communication circuit of the surveillance craft, and (iv) a second communication link between the computer control system and at least one fire fighting resource; andc. wherein the control program includes: (i) image acquisition commands that are executed by the computer control system to direct the surveillance craft to obtain and transmit to the computer control system image data defining images of selected geographic regions of the earth, (ii) image analysis commands that are executed by the command control system and neural network processor to analyze the communicated image data to determine whether a fire exists in a selected geographic region, and if a fire is determined to exist, to characterize selected features of the fire, (iii) database acquisition commands that are executed by the computer control system to locate and acquire from the database data defining fire control parameters characterizing the selected geographic region in which a fire exists; (iv) expert system analysis commands that are executed by the computer control system to analyze the data defining the selected features of the fire and the fire control parameters characterizing the selected geographic region in which the fire exists, and to render recommended fire fighting decisions, and (v) communication commands executed by the computer control system to control the display terminal to indicate recommended fire fighting decisions, and to communicate selected of the decisions to at least one fire fighting resource.