Optimisation of tower site locations for camera-based wildfire detection systems

Author(s)

Warren du Plessis, Michael Kosch, Gavin Hough

Published

2019

Citation

Heyns, A., W. du Plessis, M. Kosch, & G. Hough. 2019. Optimisation of tower site locations for camera-based wildfire detection systems. Wildland Fire http://www.publish.csiro.au/WF/justaccepted/WF18196.

Publication URL

Link

Abstract

Early forest fire detection can effectively be achieved by systems of specialised tower-mounted cameras. With the aim of maximising system visibility of smoke above a prescribed region, the process of selecting multiple tower sites from a large number of potential site locations is a complex combinatorial optimisation problem. Historically, these systems have been planned by foresters and locals with intimate knowledge of the terrain rather than by computational optimisation tools. When entering vast new territories, however, such knowledge and expertise may not be available to system planners. A tower site-selection optimisation framework which may be used in such circumstances is described in this paper. Metaheuristics are used to determine candidate site layouts for an area in the Nelspruit region in South Africa currently monitored by the ForestWatch detection system. Visibility cover superior to that of the existing system in the region is achieved and are obtained in a number of days, while traditional approaches normally require months of speculation and planning. Following the promising results presented here, the optimisation framework is earmarked for use in future ForestWatch system planning.