US-12626566-B2 - System and method for providing emergency alerts using multi-color light emitting diode notification appliances

US12626566B2US 12626566 B2US12626566 B2US 12626566B2US-12626566-B2

Abstract

A system for providing emergency alerts is provided. The system includes a plurality of sensors, a plurality of notification appliances, and processing circuitry. Each sensor monitors at least one parameter of a space and generates sensed data. Each notification appliance is operable to emit light in a plurality of colors. The processing circuitry detects, based on the sensed data, that at least one event among a plurality of events has occurred in the space, and determines a first evacuation path from the space that bypasses a location of the detected event. The processing circuitry further operates the plurality of notification appliances to emit light in a color assigned to the detected event among the plurality of colors and provide direction guidance for the first evacuation path. The direction guidance for the first evacuation path is provided by controlling one or more characteristics of the emitted light.

Inventors

Siddhesh K. NAGALE
Sandip Shelar
Joseph Piccolo
Sonali Mahendra Date
Bruce W. Marien

Assignees

Johnson Controls Tyco IP Holdings LLP

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20230419
Priority Date: 20220309

Claims (3)

1 . A system for providing evacuation path guidance, the system comprising: sensors, each sensor: at a known location in a space, configured to monitor at least one parameter of the space, and configured to generate sensed data based on the monitored parameter; notification appliances, each notification appliance: at a know known location in the space, and operable to emit light; and processing circuitry, in communication with each sensor and each notification appliance and configured to: detect, based on the sensed data, that at least one event among a plurality of event a gunshot event associated with a suspect is occurring at one or more event locations in the space; determine, based on the detected event and the known location of the sensors, a first evacuation path in the space that bypasses at least one detected event location; operate the notification appliances to provide direction guidance for the first evacuation path by controlling one or more characteristics of the emitted light, including disabling those notification appliances present in a movement trajectory of the suspect.
2 . A method for providing evacuation path guidance, the method comprising: in processing circuitry, in communication with sensors and notification appliances, each sensor at a known location in a space, configured to monitor at least one parameter of the space, and configured to generate sensed data based on the monitored parameter, each notification appliance at a known location in the space, and operable to emit light: detecting, based on the sensed data, that a gunshot event associated with a suspect is occurring at one or more event locations in the space; determining, based on the detected event and the known location of the sensors, a first evacuation path in the space that bypasses at least one detected event location; operating the notification appliances to provide direction guidance for the first evacuation path by controlling one or more characteristics of the emitted light, including disabling those notification appliances present in a movement trajectory of the suspect.
3 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry the processing circuitry, in communication with sensors and notification appliances, each sensor at a known location in a space, configured to monitor at least one parameter of the space, and configured to generate sensed data based on the monitored parameter, each notification appliance at a known location in the space, and operable to emit light: detecting, based on the sensed data, that a gunshot event associated with a suspect is occurring at one or more event locations in the space; determining, based on the detected event and the known location of the sensors, a first evacuation path in the space that bypasses at least one detected event location; operating the notification appliances to provide direction guidance for the first evacuation path by controlling one or more characteristics of the emitted light, including disabling those notification appliances present in a movement trajectory of the suspect.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application is a Continuation-In-Part of application Ser. No. 18/181,404, filed Mar. 9, 2023, which claims priority to Indian Patent Application No. 202221012712, filed Mar. 9, 2022, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties. BACKGROUND The present disclosure relates generally to notification systems. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to systems and methods for providing emergency alerts using multi-color light emitting diode (LED) notification appliances. Nowadays a variety of notification appliances are available on the market. The main objective of these notification appliances is to notify users or occupants of a building of a particular event (for example, an emergency). The most commonly used notification appliance is a visual indicator. When activated, the visual indicator illuminates as a warning for individuals within the area. However, these visual indicators emit light in single color, which makes it difficult for a user to understand the cause of the warning. Therefore, different visual indicators, either housed in a single housing or separate housings, emitting different colors are used to warn users of different events, for example, red colored strobe for fire warning, amber colored strobe for mass notification, blue colored strobe for carbon monoxide leak, etc. Further, these visual indicators make use of Xenon bulbs which consume high current and have short life span. Though these notification appliances warn users regarding the emergency situation, they fail to provide any evacuation route guidance to the users. Typically, these buildings have pre-set evacuation plans for guiding building occupants towards safe exit in case of emergency. These pre-set evacuation routes generally include static or digital signage boards to inform building occupants of primary and alternate emergency exit routes. However, these conventional solutions fail to adapt according to dynamically changing emergency situations, for example, fire spreading to different area, gunshot suspect being on the move, etc. In other words, the existing systems merely indicate the presence of an emergency situation and occupants rely on pre-set evacuation paths for evacuation. In light of the foregoing, there exists a need for notification systems the overcome the abovementioned problems by indicating the type of emergency event and providing dynamic evacuation path guidance. SUMMARY One implementation of the present disclosure relates to a system for providing emergency alerts. The system comprises a plurality of sensors, a plurality of notification appliances, and processing circuitry. Each sensor among the plurality of sensors is configured to monitor at least one parameter of a space and generate sensed data. Each notification appliance among the plurality of notification appliances is operable to emit light in a plurality of colors. The processing circuitry is configured to detect, based on the sensed data, that at least one event among a plurality of events has occurred in the space. The processing circuitry is further configured to determine a first evacuation path from the space that bypasses a location of the detected event. The processing circuitry is further configured to operate the plurality of notification appliances to emit light in a color assigned to the detected event among the plurality of colors and provide direction guidance for the first evacuation path. The direction guidance for the first evacuation path is provided by controlling one or more characteristics of the emitted light. In some embodiments, each of the plurality of events is assigned a different color among the plurality of colors for event indication. In some embodiments, the first evacuation path leads away from the location of the detected event to at least one of a safe shelter and an exit location of the space. In some embodiments, the one or more characteristics of the emitted light comprises at least one of an intensity level, a blinking rate, a flashing pattern, and a projection direction of the emitted light. In some embodiments, the plurality of events include fire, gunshot, earthquake, flood, oxygen deficiency, gas leak, and breaking and entering. In some embodiments, the at least one parameter includes at least one of temperature, smoke, oxygen levels, pressure, occupancy state, humidity, sound, motion, real-time video, and real-time images. In some embodiments, the processing circuitry is further configured to determine the location of the detected event based on the sensed data and locations of one or more sensors among the plurality of sensors that generated the sensed data. In some embodiments, each of the plurality of notification appliances comprises at least one RGB light emitting diode configured to emit light in the plurality of colors. In some embodiments, the plurality of notification appliances are based on addressable commu