SAFE WARN BUILDING SYSTEM AND METHOD

Abstract

A method and system for building safe warn. The building safe warn generally related to warning or otherwise alerting building occupants to hazards or other conditions in the building. The warnings may be generated as a function of occupant positioning with the building and/or the location of a hazard so as to facilitate safely evacuating the occupants from the building. The location of the occupants may be reported to emergency response entities to facilitate occupant discovery and rescue.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is pointed out with particularity in the appended claims. However, other features of the present invention will become more apparent and the present invention will be best understood by referring to the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompany drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a building safe warn system in accordance with one non-limiting aspect of the present invention; and

FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart of a method for alerting building occupants in accordance with one non-limiting aspect of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method of alerting building occupants within a building to hazards, the method comprising: locating a hazard within the building as function of signals received from one or more sensors within the building;locating one or more building occupants as a function of wireless signal communications with RF tags carried on the building occupants; andalerting the occupants to the hazard as a function of a location of the occupants relative to the hazard.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising alerting occupants at a first location in the building with a first alert and alerting occupants in a second location of the building with a second alert, the second alert being different than the first alert.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising varying the first and second alerts as a function of a location of a display used to display the alerts, the location of the hazard, and the location of one or more of the occupants.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising alerting the occupants to move away from the hazard depending on the location of the occupants relative to the location of the hazard.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising re-directing the occupants as a function of changes in the hazard.

6. The method of claim 4 further comprising re-directing the occupants as a function of the occupants changing locations.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising alerting a hazardous response entity to the location of the hazard and the occupants.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising alerting the occupants as a function of instructions received from the hazardous response entity.

9. The method of claim 7 further comprising providing a graphical representation having a layout of the building and the location of the hazard and occupants to the response entity.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising electronically communicating the graphical representation to the response entity.

11. A safety system for use in a building having a number of occupants, the system comprising: a number of wireless devices carried on occupants for use in locating the occupants;one or more alarms within the building for sensing occurrence of one more predefined safety related events; anda controller in communication with the wireless devices and the one or more alarms, the controller configured to automatically generate an evacuation strategy to facilitate safely exiting the occupants from the building, the evacuation strategy being determined at least in part as a function of the location of the occupants and the alarms.

12. The system of claim 11 further comprising one or more displays within the building to facilitate directing the occupants out of the building in accordance with the evacuation strategy.

13. The system of claim 11 further comprising adjusting the evacuation strategy according to instructions received from a wireless device carried by an emergency response entity.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the controller is configured to adjust the evacuation strategy with movement of the occupants throughout the building.

15. A safety system for use in a building having a number of occupants, the system comprising: a number of wireless devices carried on occupants for use in locating the occupants; anda number of stationary nodes positioned throughout the building, the nodes forming mesh network for communication with the wireless devices, wherein each nodded is configured to automatically generate an evacuation strategy to facilitate safely exiting the occupants from the building, the evacuation strategy being determined at least in part as a function of the location of the occupants.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein a portion of the nodes are assigned to direct evacuation of the portion of the occupants, and wherein if the one of the nodes fail, one or more of the others nodes is assigned to evacuate the occupants associated with the failed node.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein at least one of the nodes is an emergency response node configured to communicate with an emergency response entity.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the emergency response node is configured to communicate occupant locations to the emergency response entity.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the emergency response entity includes a hand-held locating device to facilitate locating the occupants.

20. The system of claim 15 further comprising a number of displays within the building, the node being configured to control the displays to facilitate evacuating the occupants.