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An urban building tends to be of colossal, high-rise architecture so as to provide as much accommodation as possible, which results in overpopulation on limited land. Thus, building security has become a concern for city dwellers. It is a practice that automatic security apparatus has been equipped as part of basic facilities of a residential building. A modern building is often equipped with fire alarms, video monitors, burglar alarms, network systems and other kinds of security systems. However, each system generally works independently. If an emergency suddenly takes place in a building that is under watch by a security guard, it would be difficult for the guard to take immediate action to get the situation under control, especially for a fire, to which time is crucial. So if all security systems are integrated into an intelligent system, it would enable security personnel to take necessary steps for rescue in no time. This work is aimed to construct a set of Integrated Monitoring System (IMS), that is to unify building security systems to monitor and display the status of the building. Under the constraimt that the hardware and structure of the building remain intact, an analog fire alarm system is integrated with PC-based digital image technology to assist detection of a fire emergency. With reference to the standards of human tolerances to heat, oxygen sufficiency and smoke, it would enable security personnel to categorize and to take proper action to control a fire emergency. It is not feasible to start a real fire to test the performance of the IMS. Our system was tested under various fire sceneries to check its alarm signals. A cloud of thick smoke to simulate a fire situation was provided to test the function of the digital image processing system. The system has successfully passed the pre-set simulation tests.
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