Emergency Alarm Management in Wireless Systems

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

In wireless communications systems without supporting equipment, there is no guaranteed delivery of emergency messages due to the absence of management, leading to uncertainty about message receipt by destination subscribers, especially in scenarios where subscribers roam out of range or are unavailable.

Innovation Solution

The system empowers subscribers to manage emergency alarm messages by assigning roles such as EM responders and EM monitors, where only one subscriber per group acknowledges messages, and employs tiered responders and random launch times to prevent over-the-air interference, with the EM initiator retrying messages across multiple responder levels if initial acknowledgment is not received.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If supporting equipment is used to manage emergency messages, then message delivery reliability is improved, but system cost increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemessage delivery reliabilityVSAvoidsystem cost
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements self-service by enabling subscribers to autonomously manage emergency message delivery without supporting equipment. The destination subscriber automatically sends acknowledgments and the source subscriber handles resending, making the system self-managing and eliminating the need for expensive supporting infrastructure while maintaining reliable delivery

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

2Device complexity

If subscribers communicate directly without supporting equipment, then system cost is reduced, but message delivery reliability deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesystem costVSAvoidmessage delivery reliability
Core Design Contradiction:
Device complexityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements feedback mechanisms where the destination subscriber automatically sends acknowledgments back to the source subscriber when receiving emergency messages. This feedback loop ensures the source subscriber knows whether delivery was successful, enabling automatic resending if needed, thus maintaining reliability without supporting equipment

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

Solution Approach 2:

The patent applies preliminary action by pre-configuring subscribers with emergency message management capabilities, including automatic acknowledgment sending and resending logic. This preparation ensures that when emergency messages are transmitted, the reliability mechanisms are already in place and can operate immediately without requiring supporting equipment

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

3Reliability

If multiple subscribers acknowledge emergency messages simultaneously, then message receipt confirmation is improved, but over-the-air interference increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemessage receipt confirmationVSAvoidover-the-air interference
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSObject-generated harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements periodic action by introducing random backoff delays before subscribers send acknowledgments. Instead of simultaneous transmissions, subscribers wait for randomly determined time intervals before acknowledging, which spreads out transmissions and reduces over-the-air interference while still ensuring multiple acknowledgments are received

Inventive Principle:
Principle #19Periodic action

Data Source

PatentEP1994661B1Method and system of managing emergency alarms in a wireless communications system
Publication Date: 2018.08.29 MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS INC
  • EP1994661B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP1994661B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP1994661B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A system (100) for managing emergency alarm messages in a wireless communications system is disclosed. A first subscriber (104) is assigned an emergency alarm responder role to send an acknowledgement message and present information from a received emergency alarm message to a user of the first subscriber, when the first subscriber receives the emergency alarm message. A second subscriber (106) is assigned an emergency alarm monitor role to present information from the received emergency alarm message to a user of the second subscriber.