** Reply to message from Karl Cunningham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Wed, 07 May 2008 08:09:33 -0700
> Smoke must be > distinguished against a variety of backgrounds -- sky, clouds, rocky > hills, dry meadows, etc. Software to distinguish smoke from clouds > sounds tough. Humans have a hard time with this one, and it's especially > needed during thunderstorms. probably true but a combined system would beat the pants of the 100% human-at-the-site system. Having a camera system up there looking for smoke and then alarming back to a single manned post who is "watching" all of southern CA shouldn't be out of the question. And in another 10 years we could probably have dozens of mini drones which each could be airborne in short order and do the IR detection mentioned. > Given today's technology I suspect this is better done by humans. Fine, put cameras out there so one or two humans are remotely monitoring dozens of sites. Lightning detection should be a piece of cake and after that the humans keep and eye out for either smoke or fire at the strike location. We do have alot of tech which gets us close to having manned observation platforms but without the required manpower and salaries. Doug -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
