NIST trains AI to hear the 'oh crap' moment before batteries explode

Researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have come up with an early warning system for lithium-ion battery fires. The nature of lithium-ion battery fires is that by the time smoke triggers a traditional smoke alarm, the fire might be well under way. They also tend to get considerably hotter …

[Pascal Monett]

"find its way into homes, office buildings, and [EV] parking garages"

Hey, I'm all for it. I know one parking in central Luxembourg that would probably have very much liked to have that alarm in 2019 when it was devastated by a vehicle that caught fire. It was never specified if the vehicle was an EV, though.

It's still closed, and I don't know how many other vehicles were trashed before the fire was put out.

Price tag for renovation ? almost €30 million. And they had a fire alarm.

Yeah, you definitely want all the warning you can get concerning a garage fire.

Or any fire, really.

[cipnt]

Re: "find its way into homes, office buildings, and [EV] parking garages"

Last year there was a similar fire in a multistorey car park at Luton airport. It turned out it was caused by a diesel Land Rover. So don't assume EV every time you hear of a car fire.

Statistically they are less likely to catch fire than diesel or petrol, but as the article suggests, when they do, the intensity is far greater. Some fire departments don't even try to put the fire out anymore because it is close to impossible, merely controlling the fire and preventing it from spreading.

But it is worth mentioning that modern lithium batteries have temperature sensors that can detect a thermal incident and alert the user.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: "find its way into homes, office buildings, and [EV] parking garages"

It turned out it was caused by a diesel Land Rover. So don't assume EV every time you hear of a car fire.

Indeed. The Bedfordshire Fire Service report into the Luton Fire makes clear that a diesel car started the fire and waffles around a bit but generally seems to say that there is no evidence that electric vehicles contributed to the spread.

It's not really surprising, since IC cars can easily contain a huge amount of easily available combustion energy. I put almost 2GJ into my car yesterday.

[Andrew Scott]

Re: "find its way into homes, office buildings, and [EV] parking garages"

Surprising

. diesel fuel is usually much harder to ignite than petrol/gas.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: "find its way into homes, office buildings, and [EV] parking garages"

So don't assume EV every time you hear of a car fire.

In fact, assume it wasn't an EV. EVs are much less likely to catch fire than ICE vehicles, and there are fewer of them to boot.

[Richard 12]

Or a break-wire sensor on the valve

You know, something that costs under half a cent and has a reliability greater than 99.9% and cannot be confused by sounds.

[Spazturtle]

Re: Or a break-wire sensor on the valve

That only really works for things like phone or cars which can then send a warning. The random power banks that people buy from china are not going to add a speaker to give a warning.

[sitta_europea]

Re: Or a break-wire sensor on the valve

"... The random power banks that people buy from china are not going to add a speaker to give a warning. ..."

I suppose preventing the random Chinese cr@p getting into the supply chain in the first place isn't an option?

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Or a break-wire sensor on the valve

Might help. To be honest, I've misplaced my random Chinese power bank and I'm a little concerned that I'm going to find it the hard way...

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Or a break-wire sensor on the valve

Oh! I found it. Seems fine...

[Alumoi]

Re: Or a break-wire sensor on the valve

Take a good look at all your eveyday items, check where they were manufactured, read what you said and think about it.

[graemep]

Re: Or a break-wire sensor on the valve

Cars and other big things are the biggest problem though.

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: Cars and other big things are the biggest problem though.

Au contraire... there are way more shitty cheap small battery packs than electric cars and other big things. Orders of magnitude more. And being smaller doesn't lower the fire damage. As discovered recently by the pair who died in a local house fire caused by a bad e-bike conversion. Relatively small pack. Flambé'd people.

All those USB power banks, dodgy replacement phone batteries, non-OEM versions of powertool batteries... the list goes on and on.

[IGotOut]

Re: Cars and other big things are the biggest problem though.

"non-OEM versions of powertool batteries... "

Most are just bog standard cells in a proprietary case. If you think they are using some high quality components, you're going to be very disappointed.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Or a break-wire sensor on the valve

The biggest problem with battery fires at the moment is the proliferation of cheap e-bikes and e-scooters. Passenger vehicles at least have design and safety standards and their approval for sale is reasonably well controlled.

[Phil O'Sophical]

only a matter of time

Before this sound appears as a ringtone...

[harrys]

Re: only a matter of time

100% agree

no one wants to do the boring stuff anymore.... that's the problem

imagine this being implemented at vast cost/scale across multiple sites, the ongoing running and maintenance cost of the system with the many layers that the system uses, each being a point of failure

its because fiat money has been so "easy and plentiful" for so long

you can feel finally that the "times they are a changing"

necessity is the mother of invention .... soon necessity will produce the £1 fix, instead of these wasteful pointless self indulgent but above all energy wasting solutions

Statitstical analysis of large data sets has its niche uses .... the rest are just exercises in mental masturbation and/or greed :)

[Christoph]

Is it not possible to engineer it to give a louder and/or more distinctive sound?

[Paul Crawford]

That follows, just not in time to act...

[Wang Cores]

Modify the alarm tone

I'm darkly amused at the image of someone changing the tones to certain Counterstrike announcements.

"BOMB HAS BEEN PLANTED" for heating up.

"TERRORISTS WIN" for thermal runaway event.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Just add a Swanee whistle or Kazoo to the valve?

[spold]

Sudden choices

Ummm... so you have up to 2 minutes to deal with the situation, based on the type of device I guess you can: i) try and remove the batteries (that might explode in the process), ii) throw it out of the nearest window (like you might do with any other malfunctioning hand-grenade), iii) flush it down the loo (a resulting pressure wave forcing the contents of the sewer system up all the toilets in the building) iv) if it's a big big vehicle battery then set the car on self-drive to an appropriate local destination (such as Slough - thank-you Mr. Betjeman), v) ask the intern to run it over to the most useless member/manager of the team and tell them there is a call for them vi) just run like **** (remembering to take it out of your jacket) vii) blame AI (Accessory/Automotive Incendiary).

Really, I think this should be addressed in the user manual (so if it happens you can consult it and proceed accordingly).

[Martin Summers]

Is it really AI? Or is it code running a comparison from an input to a database of sounds? It's like saying Voice recognition is AI.

The implications of AI suggest it could decide something wasn't the sound it was looking for the next time around. If something is 'intelligent' then it is possible for it to make different decisions at different times. This is one of those situations I'd probably prefer it was 100% consistent.

Yet more AI pie in the sky to attract attention.

[Ken Shabby]

If it was trained on internet data, and had ingested the magic vagina joke. It might tell you “sounds like some c**t whistling”

[AustinTX]

Always the same solution: constant surveillance

So once again, to "keep us safe" we are asked to submit to 24/7/365 audio surveillance. I'm SURE that can't serve multiple purposes after assurances otherwise?

How about, instead of AI or whatever constantly analyzing for impudent sounds, that safety valve be built to WHISTLE at a specific frequency which can be detected by dumb circuitry?

[Nightkiller]

This research was funded by Hizbollah.