Alarm notification software is useful in food production plants, hospitals, waste water management systems and in a variety of other facilities. This kind of software, which is Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), is also great for the outdoors. Alarm notification software is being used to monitor environmental changes and alert populations in the event of natural disasters. In this way, mobile alarm notification systems, such as the ones provided by Micromedia International and WIN-911, are working to save the lives of entire towns and villages.
In one such town, alarm notification software is quietly monitoring environmental conditions to make sure a landslide does not happen without advance notice. In the town of Vizille, France, a mobile alarm notification system will now let professionals know if a landslide starts forming – up to a week in advance of when it could actually happen.
As part of a contingency plan set up by local authorities, protecting the town relies heavily on deployment of an alert system that can detect the early environmental signs of a landslide. Should a landslide occur, a natural dam could be created that would block the bottom of a valley. This dam could very easily trap water and start to form a natural lake. That would be very bad for Vizille, which would quickly find itself under water should the natural dam ever be breached.
For this reason, three independent monitoring systems were fitted seamlessly together to track various environmental factors around the site. Together, these systems continuously track 33 sensors, 50 measurement beacons and 20 strategic markers.
If the monitoring systems detect something amiss at or near the site of risk, Micromedia International’s alarm notification software, ALERT, is set to automatically transmit a timely alarm to the proper people.
There are four types of alarms ALERT is configured to receive and dispatch:
1. Measurement alarms – alarms triggered when there is a significant change from one measurement period to the next on the same sensor
2. Forecast alarms – alarms that predict activity based on measurements obtained over time
3. Server alarms – alarms triggered whenever a backup server takes over for a main server
4. Equipment Fault Alarms – alarms triggered whenever a radio transmission or measurement acquisition fails
Whenever one of the alarms listed above is triggered, ALERT sends out the notifications in the form of mobile phone voice alarms to on-duty or on-call staff. Once an alarm has been acknowledged, the appropriate staff is able to quickly carry out specialized instructions, depending on which of the alarms they have received.
According to users, the ALERT disaster monitoring system allows for faster response times and flexibility in the case of an emergency. This is especially important since, in the case of such an emergency, a few minutes could save an untold number of lives.
For more information, please contact WIN-911’s partner Micromedia at http://www.micromedia-int.com/en/.
