Patent Application
20050057342
Recently, U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge announced a soon-to-be-deployed national terrorism alert system whose goal is to provide a “unified warning apparatus that is universally understood. It has been proposed that the alarms would be broadcast over National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) radios and would signal alert conditions—in descending order of urgency—of: critical, serious, alert and ready.
According to published information, the system would be used to alert state and local police and emergency personnel. According a report broadcast by National Public Radio on Feb. 15, 2002, the state of South Dakota has purchased 5,000 weather radios and is distributing them to universities, hospitals, law enforcement agencies and day care centers to provide a means of public emergency notification.
One advantage of the NOAA weather radios is that they turn themselves on when an alert is broadcast, increasing the likelihood that they will be noticed.
The present invention extends the concept of a national warning alert proposal by incorporating a NOAA weather radio receiver into, or interfacing a NOAA weather radio receiver with, a building fire alarm system. Because code-compliant fire alarm panels are already equipped with voice and/or audio and visual notification appliances, they provide a ready means with which to notify building occupants of a national alert.
In accordance with the present invention, a fire alarm system includes a fire alarm notification appliance, and a warning detector which detects a warning alert from an external source. The fire alarm notification appliance provides notification of the warning alert in response to detection of the warning alert or a change in the status of the warning alert.
The external source may be, but is not limited to, a government agency, such as the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The warning detector may be a radio receiver equipped to receive the warning alert, such as a NOAA weather radio receiver, and may be, for. example, integrated with a system controller or fire alarm control panel. Alternatively, the warning detector may comprise a component that interfaces to a NOAA weather radio receiver, for example, via relay contacts that open (or close) upon detection of a warning alert, or via a serial or some other data interface.
In alternate embodiments, the warning detector may receive warning alerts via means other than radio; for example, via the Internet, via telephone or via cellular phone. Other means of communication can also be used.
In one embodiment, a fire alarm notification appliance provides notification of the detected warning alert by transmitting a voice message. Alternatively, a notification appliance could provide notification by transmitting a predefined audio pattern, or by flashing a predefined strobe pattern. Different notifications, such as different voiced messages, or different horn patterns, can be used for different warning alerts.
Delay and verification modules, which may comprise hardware or software or both, and which may be integrated with the system controller, can provide respectively a delay before transmission of the notification warning, and means for allowing confirmation of the validity of the warning alert before transmission of the notification, for example by authorized personnel.
The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular description of preferred embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which like reference characters refer to the same parts throughout the different views. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.
A description of preferred embodiments of the invention follows.
The present invention extends the concept of a national warning alert proposal by incorporating a NOAA weather radio receiver into, or interfacing a NOAA weather radio receiver with, a building fire alarm system. Because code-compliant fire alarm panels are already equipped with voice and/or audio and visual notification appliances, they provide a ready means with which to notify building occupants of a national alert. Code-compliant fire alarm panels are also equipped with battery backup power. In the event that normal AC power is lost, the panel can still transmit the notification.
For example, a national alert signal transmitted to a NOAA weather radio that is interfaced to a fire alarm system causes the fire panel, which has been pre-programmed to respond to the alert, to transmit a voice message to the occupants of the building. Such a message might be: “Attention! Attention! A security alert has been received from the National Homeland Security Department.” Then, depending upon the level of the alert condition, the panel broadcasts an appropriate message. For example:
In non-voice fire alarm systems, the notification horns and strobes could be programmed to signal building occupants using pre-defined patterns, e.g., temporal code. Training and drills will be needed to ensure that occupants will understand the various security alerts.
Such an alert system could be retrofit to most existing fire alarm systems with relatively little expense, enabling the government to notify a vast number of citizens quickly in a national emergency. The system could be put into place quickly and with a relatively small investment.
Implementation can be accomplished in several ways, including but not limited to the following:
An external NOAA receiver 30 is shown receiving a warning alert signal 42 broadcast from an NOAA transmitting station 40. A circuit performing the NOAA receiver function could also be incorporated directly into the system controller 14.
The system controller 14, which may be, for example, a fire alarm panel, is programmed to respond to the NOAA warning alert signal 42 with a series of pre-defined actions. For example, if an alert is received, a general announcement is played; if the alert level is “critical,” then some particular message designated with that alert level is played.
Code-compliant fire alarm panels are typically equipped with a battery backup system 18. In the event that normal AC power is lost, the fire alarm panel 14 can still transmit a notification.
The idea can be extended to include transmission of warning signals from other state or local government agencies, e.g., the old Emergency Broadcast System or the newer Emergency Alert System. Media other than the NOAA weather radio can also transmit such signals. For example, an alert signal can be transmitted via the Internet, telephone, cellular phone, or other media to a fire panel equipped to receive such signals.
To prevent false alarms or panic situations, an embodiment of the present invention can, at step 53, incorporate a fixed or variable delay to the retransmission of the alert signal within the building for some pre-determined time period to give local building authorities time to confirm the validity of the received warning signal.
Finally, at step 55, the system announces, through voice or non-voice means, the warning alert.
While this invention has been particularly shown and described with references to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention encompassed by the appended claims.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/502,337, filed September 12, 2003. The entire teachings of the above application(s) are incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60502337 | Sep 2003 | US |
