Reliable IP based communication for fire alarm systems

With the increasing popularity of the Internet, Ethernet and IP networks are commonly used as backbone technologies in the domain of building automation. For the area of networked fire alarm systems, however, dependability aspects need to be met and reliable communication must be guaranteed to satisfy functional and normative constraints. Due to the economic pressure in this domain, it is desirable to rest system architectures on conventional network technologies and commercial off-the-shelf whenever possible. Moreover, fire alarm systems shall even be integrated into existing installations. The paper defines necessary requirements for communication systems to satisfy the according standards. Subsequently, a ring-based approach with different communication procedures addressing these requirements is presented and theoretically analyzed with regards to failure models of the underlying components.