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The 911 jurisdiction of El Paso County, Texas, USA provides rescue services to more than 700,000 residents and handles approximately 45,000 emergency calls every month.
In May 2009, Ray Perez, the district assistant director who was celebrating his wedding anniversary with his wife in As Vegas, received an emergency call informing him that the temperature in the 1,300-square-foot equipment room in the 911 building was close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The equipment room is equipped with an 8-foot-tall telecommunications equipment rack, a set of uninterrupted battery supply (UPS) system (including a cabinet for storing 42 batteries), and a server running 911 jurisdiction email, BlackBerry and management network.
A set of Liebert refrigeration equipment in the equipment room (two sets in total) cannot operate normally due to a fan failure. It was not until a staff member happened to enter the room that he noticed the temperature rise and called the maintenance staff to deal with the accident in time before the electronic equipment was damaged.
After returning to the office, Perez began to seek a solution to the problem. In the end, he used RF Code’s RFID system to track the temperature in the equipment room and office. If the temperature fluctuates beyond a preset threshold, the system sends an alert to Perez and its employees’ BlackBerry phones.
The 911 call center-which also includes a communication room for receiving and handling emergency calls-is located in a 3-story, 50,000 square foot building, which occupies approximately half of the floor. The remaining space is used for management offices and storage rooms. The temperature of the equipment room must be maintained at 67-77 degrees Celsius.
In order to control the temperature of the entire building, the center maintains 7 sets of Liebert refrigeration and heating equipment, and installs 12 sets of Trane equipment on the roof. Before the RFID system is adopted, if a device fails to work properly, Perez or other employees may notice the problem and make adjustments accordingly. “I’m on standby 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If someone detects a problem, they will call me and let me know,” Perez said.
A board member of the 911 district of El Paso County is familiar with the nature of RF CODE’s work and suggested that Perez contact them. “My concern is to prepare actively, not to react afterwards,” he said. If there is a situation where the equipment does not work or the temperature fluctuates, Perez hopes that the new system will notify him immediately-before the incident affects the IT equipment or causes any other problems.
It took RF Code two days to install this system. The company installed 13 active 433MHZ RFID tags in the equipment room, communication room and management office, and installed a reader on each side of the building.
Among the 13 tags, 10 tags have built-in sensors that can measure temperature. A proprietary air interface protocol is used to send temperature data and its unique ID code to a reader every 60 seconds, with a reading distance of up to 150 feet. Readers-one in the equipment room and the other in the communication room-send data to a back-end server in the equipment room via a cable connection. 3 door tags are also installed at the entrance and exit of the equipment and the reading room to detect the opening time of the door.
The RF Code software loaded on the email server in the 911 jurisdiction then compiles the tag and sensor data. If the temperature in a certain location exceeds the threshold, the software sends an email to notify the relevant staff. Perez receives messages via BlackBerry, such as “Environmental alert, temperature exceeds 77 degrees Celsius” This message will be sent until the temperature returns to normal levels. If 1 minute after receiving the first message, Perez receives this warning again, then he knows that the problem must be resolved.
In addition, RF Code software allows authorized users to obtain sensor data online. Perez can log on to the website to view the temperature of all locations in the building and the environmental history of the sensors. Perez claims that he can know the temperature of the corresponding control point of the Liebert or Trane device. Based on this information, he immediately knows which set of equipment needs to be viewed, or simply close it.
This system not only allows Perez and his colleagues to find problems in time, prevents equipment from overheating and damage, and reduces the pressure on normal working equipment. If one set of equipment fails to work, the other will run at full power, which increases the pressure on normal equipment.
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