Community Safety Communication With Decentralized Emergency Alerts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current emergency notification systems are one-way, rely on cellular networks, lack location identification, and are organization-specific, leading to delayed or incomplete communication during emergencies, especially when central terminals are compromised.
Innovation Solution
A decentralized community safety system with two-way communication capabilities, allowing users to initiate alerts from any device, create secure communication channels with administrators, and include police interaction, with features like one-touch lockdown initiation and threshold-based police notifications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a centralized notification system is used, then communication control is improved, but system reliability deteriorates when the central terminal is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The notification system is divided into multiple independent notification devices distributed across different locations. Each device can independently initiate and send notifications without requiring a central terminal, thereby eliminating the single point of failure and improving system reliability during emergencies.
Solution Approach 2:
Notification devices are pre-configured with emergency notification capabilities and can be activated immediately without requiring access to a central terminal. This preliminary setup ensures that notifications can be sent even when the central office is compromised, as each device has autonomous notification functionality.
2Ease of operation
If one-way broadcast notification is used, then system simplicity is improved, but communication effectiveness deteriorates due to lack of two-way interaction
Solution Approach 1:
The notification system incorporates two-way communication capabilities that allow recipients to send feedback messages to the notification initiator. This feedback mechanism enables verification of message delivery, reporting of emergency conditions, and interactive communication between administrators and community members, thereby improving communication effectiveness.
3Adaptability or versatility
If organization-specific notification systems are used, then system simplicity is improved, but inter-organizational coordination deteriorates during multi-organization emergencies
Solution Approach 1:
The notification devices are designed with universal functionality to send notifications across multiple organizational boundaries. A single notification device can initiate alerts that are distributed to members of multiple organizations simultaneously, and the system can route notifications based on organizational affiliations, thereby enabling inter-organizational coordination during emergencies.
4Reliability
If cellular network dependency is used, then infrastructure simplicity is improved, but communication reliability deteriorates when cellular service is unavailable
Solution Approach 1:
The notification system combines multiple communication networks including cellular, Wi-Fi, and other available networks into a unified notification delivery system. This multi-network approach ensures that if one network is unavailable, alternative networks can be used to deliver emergency notifications, thereby improving communication reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A community safety system (CSS) including a notification management entity (NME) comprising servers, the NME communicatively coupled to multiple user devices and one or more administrator devices (collectively, registered user devices). The CSS includes a plurality of registered users, wherein each registered user is associated with an organization, and a user category of a set of user categories. The NME may maintain a list of the registered users and associated information. The registered users may have user devices including a CSS application operating thereon. In some embodiments the CSS enables inter-organizational communication, allowing for members of a first organization to provide alerts that the NME can pass to a second organization when the registered user is physically located within a security zone associated with a second organization but not a member of the second organization.