Computer Vision Method in Means of Egress Obstruction Detection

A safety inspection is an on-site walk-through to identify potential hazards to occupants and personnel and options for remedial action. Although the Common approach for the safety inspection (Means of Egress MOE) is manual, this approach is ineffective and inexhaustive due to some inherent challenges: (1) infrequent inspection, and (2) inefficient use of trained human resources. To address these challenges, we introduced a Dual Temporal Buffer Differencing method. This computer vision-based approach automates the inspection of an interior building hallway (exit access) for an obstruction that may be a potential fire hazard. Our approach is important because it will mitigate the risk of a fire hazard to the building occupants by sensing and alerting the safety officer before a situation turns into an emergency. The performance of our proposed approach, the benefits, and the implementation challenges, were evaluated through a case study. The result demonstrates that our proposed Dual Temporal Buffer Differencing (DTBD) method can detect a potential fire hazard in the building exit access effectively and continuously. As a result, the approach can facilitate safety in the building and allow safety inspectors to plan more trained human resources.