Incident-centric mass notification system

• US 10,271,194 B2
• Filed: 03/29/2017
• Issued: 04/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Schweiz AG (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Schweiz AG (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Ros, Johannes P., Wienands, Christoph, Gall, Michael, Budnick, Christof J., Wittemann, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Lau, Hoi C
• Application Number:
  US15/472,835
• Publication Number:
  US 20170230808A1
• Time in Patent Office: 755 Days
• Field of Search: 340902, 34053916, 4554041, 4554042, 4554122, 455521, 455466, 455418, 370259, 370331
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/24 Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/10 relating to drugs or medications, e.g. for ensuring correct administration to patients
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/04 with alarm systems, e.g. fire, police or burglar alarm systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/42 Graphical user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/205 Broadcasting broadcasting in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/04 for emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/00 Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5116 for emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]

Abstract

An Incident-centric Mass Notification System (“Incident-centric MNS system”) for notifying a plurality of recipients of an Emergency Event is disclosed. The Incident-centric MNS system may include a Mass Notification System (“MNS”) Notification Engine, modality corridor (“MoCo”) dispatcher, and a plurality of modality corridors, wherein each modality corridor of the plurality of modality corridors establishes, for signal communication, a signal path from a plurality of signal paths, between the MNS Notification Engine and a recipient of the plurality of recipients. The MNS Notification Engine is configured to manage MNS Incidents and Notifications and the MoCo dispatcher is configured to select a first modality corridor from the plurality of modality corridors to establish a first signal path from the MNS Notification Engine.

Claims

1. A Mass Notification System (“

MNS”

) Notification Engine for use in Incident-centric Mass Notification System (“

Incident-centric MNS system”

), the MNS Notification Engine comprising;

logic configured to manage a plurality of MNS Incidents and a plurality of Notifications, wherein the logic configured as an incident template includes logic configured as an incident template content,

wherein the logic configured as incident template content includes at least one set of logic configured as a launch group,

wherein the at least one set of logic configured as a launch group includes logic configured as a notification template and the logic configured as a notification template includes data structures configured to hold pre-configured information about the plurality of Notifications and the logic configured as a notification template is included in logic configured as a Notification Template Hierarchy; and

a user interface (“

UI”

) that allows an MNS User to interface with the MNS Notification Engine.

2. The MNS Notification Engine of claim 1, wherein the MNS User is a System Operator, wherein the System Operator is a System User for operating the Incident-centric MNS system during an Emergency Event.

3. The MNS Notification Engine of claim 1, wherein the logic configured as a notification template includes logic configured as a Message Template, logic configured as a Live Announcement Template, or both.

4. The MNS Notification Engine of claim 3, wherein the logic configured as a Message Template includes a data structure configured to hold pre-configured details of a Message and wherein the logic configured as a Live Announcement Template includes a data structure configured to hold pre-configured details of a Live Announcement.

5. The MNS Notification Engine of claim 4,

wherein an MNS Incident, of the plurality of MNS Incidents, includes a plurality of MNS Incident states,

wherein the logic configured as a launch group includes a plurality of Notification Templates, and

wherein the launch group is configured to launch the plurality of Notification Templates simultaneously during an MNS Incident state of the plurality of MNS Incident states.

6. The MNS Notification Engine of claim 5, wherein the plurality of MNS Incident states includes states selected from the group consisting of an active state, suspended state, suspending state, cancelled state, cancelling state, all-clear state, completed state, and closed state.

7. The MNS Notification Engine of claim 6,

wherein the UI includes a plurality of graphical pictograms,

wherein each graphical pictogram represents an Emergency Event from a plurality of Emergency Events,

wherein the MNS User is a System Operator,

wherein the System Operator is a System User for operating the Incident-centric MNS system during an Emergency Event, and

wherein the UI is configured to allow a System Operator to quickly initiate an MNS Incident and launch a notification.