Kelly J Flint

US Patent:

20040145467, Jul 29, 2004

Filed:

Oct 2, 2003

Appl. No.:

10/676779

Inventors:

Richard Roby - Columbia MD, US
Michael Klassen - Columbia MD, US
Christopher Schemel - Laurel MD, US
Diwakar Vashishat - Germantown MD, US
MacLain Holton - Columbia MD, US
Kelly Flint - Greenbelt MD, US

International Classification:

G08B001/00

US Classification:

340/531000, 340/628000

Abstract:

A method for detecting smoke detector alarms comprises analyzing at least two parameters of ambient sound over a period of time to detect a temporal pattern of the alarm. In one embodiment, a series of samples are taken over a period of time sufficiently long to include at least one full period of a repeating sound pattern, and the two parameters are frequency and amplitude of the loudest sound in each sample. The algorithmic analysis may be triggered by a detection algorithm that utilizes a lower amount of power than the algorithmic analysis. In other embodiments, the detection apparatus is incorporated into a conventional smoke detector that will detect both smoke and an alarm from another detector. In another embodiment, a smoke detector includes a transceiver to transmit an activation signal to neighboring smoke detectors when a fire is detected and to receive an activation signal from neighboring detectors.