Patent Document ID: 20040239912
Application ID: 10479250
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. Method for detection and location of smoke, characterised by the use of a biaxial lidar station comprising: a pulsed laser source of a probing beam, with the energy of 1 &mgr;J-1 J per pulse, repetition rate of 0.5 Hz-20 kHz, and the wavelength in the range 0.2-12 &mgr;m; a telescope for collecting the backscattered radiation; an optical filter for suppression of the background radiation with a transmittance window of 0.1-10 nm spectral width, centred at the wavelength of the emitted laser radiation; a photodetector that measures the collected radiation; a diaphragm for control of the detector aperture; a computer-controlled unit for beam scanning; an analog-to-digital converter synchronised with the laser shutter, which transforms the detector signal and sends it to the memory unit; a memory unit for accumulation of the lidar returns resulting from the backscattering from each laser pulse; software for processing and analysis of the lidar signal and identification of eventual smoke plumes, based on a neural network algorithm, in which the neural network is simulated or implemented as a co-processor; high-level software that performs overall control of the system in the following aspects: (i) analyses the messages of the signal-processing software and, if necessary, activates the alarm; (ii) controls the azimuth and elevation step motors in order to realise optimised scanning procedure with respect to the azimuth and elevation angles; (iii) if necessary, modifies the scanning procedure and other system parameters.