falohun-2016-ijca-908473.pdf — page 2

International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) 
Volume 135 – No.7, February 2016 
31 
Initiating Devices: This component acts as an input to the fire 
alarm control unit and are either manually or automatically 
actuated. Examples would be devices pull stations, heat 
detectors, or gas detectors. Heat and gas detectors have 
different categories of both kinds. Some categories are beam, 
photoelectrical, aspiration, and duct. 
Notification appliances: This component uses energy 
supplied from the fire alarm system or other stored energy 
source, to inform the proximate persons of the need to take 
action, usually to evacuate. This is done by means of a 
flashing light, strobe light, electromechanical horn, "beeper 
horn", chime, bell, speaker, or a combination of these devices. 
Building Safety Interfaces: This interface allows the fire 
alarm system to control aspects of the built environment and 
to prepare the building for fire, and to control the spread of 
gas fumes and fire by influencing air movement, lighting, 
process control, human transport and exit. [13]   
Microcontrollers are designed for small or dedicated 
applications. Microcontrollers are used in automatically 
controlled products and devices, such as automobile engine 
control systems, implantable medical devices, remote 
controls, office machines, appliances, power tools, and toys. 
By reducing the size and cost compared to a design that uses a 
separate microprocessor, memory, and input/output devices, 
microcontrollers make it economical to digitally control even 
more devices and processes. Mixed signal microcontrollers 
are common, integrating analog components needed to control 
non-digital electronic systems. [14]  
2.3 Embedded Design 
A microcontroller can be considered a self-contained system 
with a processor, memory and peripherals and can be used 
with an embedded system. (Only the software needs be 
added). The majority of microcontrollers in use today are 
embedded in other machinery, such as automobiles, 
telephones, appliances, and peripherals for computer systems. 
These are called embedded systems. While some embedded 
systems are very sophisticated, many have minimal 
requirements for memory and program length, with no 
operating system, and low software complexity. Typical input 
and output devices include switches, relays, solenoids, LEDs, 
small or custom LCD displays, radio frequency devices, and 
sensors for data such as temperature, humidity, light level etc. 
[6] .Embedded systems usually have no keyboard, screen, 
disks, printers, or other recognizable I/O devices of a personal 
computer, and may lack human interaction device. [1] .The 
amount and type of detectors and the type of fire alarm system 
that one chooses for property protection will depend on the 
owner‟s property protection goals, the value of the property 
and the requirements of the owner‟s insurance company. 
Generally, heat detection will be used in all areas that are not 
considered high value. Here again, one of the most common 
mistakes in fire alarm system application is to provide partial 
protection of a building and expect high performance from the 
installed systems of any kind . [5] 
 
Figure 2: A typical Fire Alarm System (Source: [1]). 
2.4 Review of Related Works 
[15] developed a system to counter the problems of gas 
accidents in coal mines and family safety from gas usage 
through the use of a new infrared detection optics principle. 
The infrared optics gas detection was high in detection 
accuracy, long range service life. It the system allowed the 
passage of infrared signal to the gas intended for measurement 
while its molecules will absorb the light energy. The 
absorption relationship followed Lamber-Beer law. 
In the year 2014, [12] stated that an efficient and smooth 
working controller is needed to continuously sense both 
leakage and level of the gas. And also fast response is 
required when leakage is found and the monitoring system 
must provide additional leakage information which can be 
used in further processing. The detection system includes 
Arduino duemilanove, microcontroller board compatible with 
ATmega328p. coupled with the system is the weight sensor, 
LCD display, GSM and DC motor. 
[4] designed and implemented a GSM-Based Remote 
Monitoring System. The  paper  focused  on  wireless  
monitoring because  the  wireless  remote  monitoring  system  
has  a wider  application. The hardware and software 
architecture of the system was designed where the remote 
signal is transmitted through GSM network. The system has 
two parts: the monitoring center and the remote monitoring 
station.  The monitoring center consists of a computer and a 
TC35 communication module for GSM.  The computer and 
the TC35 are connected by RS232.  The remote monitoring 
station consist of a TC35 communication module  for GSM, 
an MSP430F149 MCU, a display unit, sensors  and a data  
gathering and processing unit. The software for the 
monitoring center and the remote monitoring station were 
designed using VB. 
A review of gas leak detection techniques was done by [9] 
with a classification of leak detection methods in a gas 
pipeline to monitor the integrity of a pipeline. 
In terms of mode of operation, [12] settled for the use an 
Arduino board, which is quite expensive and bulky. [10] used 
microcontroller (PIC16F877), which in turn is a soft real time 
system. It is said that “A hard real time system should always 
respond to an event within the deadline or else the system 
fails and endangers human lives but in soft real time system,