Building alarm management system with mobile device notifications

• US 10,481,574 B2
• Filed: 05/03/2017
• Issued: 11/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Original Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Inventors: Wiens-Kind, Garrett, Grabowski, Adam R., Mansoor, Mohammad Arif, Seidel, Michael Robert, Taralkar, Prashant P., Cook, Ann M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Aziz, Adnan
• Application Number:
  US15/586,228
• Publication Number:
  US 20170321923A1
• Time in Patent Office: 930 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/32 Responding to malfunctions or emergencies
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/56 Remote control
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 2120/12 Position of occupants
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/042 using digital processors G05B19/05 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/048 Monitoring; Safety
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/2614 HVAC, heating, ventillation, climate control
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 27/00 Alarm systems in which the alarm condition is signalled from a central station to a plurality of substations
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 27/005 with transmission via computer network
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 27/006 with transmission via telephone network

Abstract

A building alarm management system for a building includes a processing circuit configured to receive one or more alarms from building equipment of the building and receive location information for the building equipment located in the building and one or more mobile devices associated with one or more users located in the building. The processing circuit is further configured to retrieve role information including roles associated with the one or more users and send the one or more alarms to the one or more mobile devices based on the roles associated with the one or more users and the locations of the one or more mobile devices and the building equipment.

Claims

1. A building alarm management system for a building, the building alarm management system comprising a processing circuit configured to:

receive one or more alarms from building equipment of the building;

receive location information for the building equipment located in the building and one or more mobile devices associated with one or more users located in the building;

retrieve role information comprising roles associated with the one or more users;

send the one or more alarms to the one or more mobile devices based on the roles associated with the one or more users and locations of the one or more mobile devices and the building equipment;

store the location information over time, wherein the stored location information indicates a plurality of locations that one of the one or more mobile devices has been located in the building over time; and

determine a trajectory for the one of the one or more mobile devices based on the stored location information, the trajectory comprising a future location of the one or more mobile devices.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the alarm management system is configured to:

automatically adjust environmental conditions of a zone of the building based on preferred environmental setpoints of one of the one or more users in response to determining, based on the location information, that the one of the one or more users is in the zone of the building; and

automatically adjust the environmental conditions of the zone of the building based on preferred environmental setpoints of a user with a highest permission ranking of all users in the zone in response to determining, based on the location information, that more than one of the one or more users are located in the zone of the building.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the roles comprise a security guard role, a maintenance worker role, and a special skills role;

wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to;

send a set of the one or more alarms that are associated with the security guard role to mobile devices associated with users that are associated with the security guard role;

send a set of the one or more alarms that are associated with the maintenance worker role to mobile devices associated with users that are associated with the maintenance worker role; and

send a set of the one or more alarms that are associated with the special skills role to mobile devices associated with users that are associated with the special skills role.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to:

receive an indicator from one or more of the users via one or more of the mobile devices that associates the one of the one or more users with a particular alarm of the alarms; and

send an alarm notification to a mobile device associated with the associated user in response to determining that the particular alarm has occurred.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to:

receive a service note from one of the one or more mobile devices, wherein the service note comprises a user tag of one of the one or more users; and

send the service note to a mobile device associated with a tagged user.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to:

retrieve work shift information for the one or more users, wherein the work shift information indicates days and times that the one or more users work in the building;

record one or more alarms for one of the one or more users, wherein the recorded one or more alarms are alarms that occur outside of a work shift of the one user; and

send the recorded one or more alarms associated with the one of the one or more users to a mobile device associated with the one of the one or more users.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to:

predict an area of the building that the one of the one or more mobile devices will be located based on the determined trajectory; and

send information associated with the predicted area of the building to the one of the one or more mobile devices before the one of the one or more mobile device enters the predicted area.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to:

receive wireless signal strengths from a plurality of wireless modules configured to emit and receive wireless signals, wherein the signal strengths are signal strengths of wireless connections between the plurality of wireless modules and the building equipment and the one or more mobile devices; and

determine the locations of the building equipment and the one or more mobile devices within the building based on the signal strengths.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the building equipment and the one or more mobile devices each comprises a GPS device and an altimeter, wherein the location information received by the processing circuit of the building alarm management system received from the building equipment and the one or more mobile devices and is determined by the building equipment and the one or more mobile devices based on the GPS devices and the altimeters.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the location information received by the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is sent to the building alarm management system by an access control system;

wherein the access control system is configured to determine the locations for the building equipment and the one or more mobile devices based on at least one of;

access data from one or more card readers of the building that the one or more users can interact with via one or more access cards associated with each of the one or more users; and

video data from one or more cameras located in the building that are configured to record the video data, wherein the video data comprises images of the one or more users.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a database separate from the one or more mobile devices and configured to store the trajectory;

wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to determine the trajectory by retrieving the trajectory from the database.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to:

compare the location information for the building equipment to the future location; and

determine that the building equipment is in an area of the building associated with the future location.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to send a first alarm of the one or more alarms to the one of the one or more mobile devices, the first alarm associated with the building equipment that is in the area of the building associated with the future location.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to send the first alarm of the one or more alarms to the one of the one or more mobile devices when the user is not in the area of the building associated with the future location.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the stored location information further comprises a location that the one of the one or more mobile devices is located in the building.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving the location information for the one or more mobile devices associated with the one or more users comprises:

receiving a first user location of a first mobile device of the one or more mobile devices, the first user location associated with a first user of the one or more users; and

receiving a second user location of a second mobile device of the one or more mobile devices, the second user location associated with a second user of the one or more users; and

wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to;

compare the first user location to the location information for the building equipment;

compare the second user location to the location information for the building equipment; and

determine that the first user is located closer to the building equipment than the second user.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein sending the one or more alarms to the one or more mobile devices comprises:

sending a first alarm of the one or more alarms to the first user after determining that the first user is located closer to the building equipment than the second user;

sending a second alarm of the one or more alarms to the second user after determining that the first user is located closer to the building equipment than the second user; and

wherein the second alarm is different from the first alarm.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the stored location information further comprises a plurality of time parameters, each of the plurality of time parameters associated with the one of the one or more mobile devices and one of the plurality of locations.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to:

determine a location that the one of the one or more mobile devices is located in the building; and

send instructions to the one of the one or more mobile devices, the instructions comprising directions for traversing the building from the location that the one of the one or more mobile devices is located in the building to a target location, the target location being different from the future location.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit of the building alarm management system is configured to:

determine a location that the one of the one or more mobile devices is located in the building; and

provide a map to the one of the one or more mobile devices, the map indicating the location that the one of the one or more mobile devices is located in the building and the future location.