Background
ATEIS ME has installed the world’s first integrated fire alarm and PAVA control panel at Dubai Civil Defence Headquarters. The VELOX 4000 INT is the industry’s first fully integrated fire alarm control panel, paging microphone console and fire telephone handset, incorporated with pro-audio capability in a single enclosure. No government department has pushed the boundaries of life safety, emergency response and management in the UAE as much as the Dubai Civil Defence, which continues to lead the way in protecting human lives and property during life threatening and emergency situations.
Solution
ATEIS ME has installed the world’s first integrated fire alarm and PAVA control panel at Dubai Civil Defence Headquarters. The VELOX 4000 INT is the industry’s first fully integrated fire alarm control panel, paging microphone console and fire telephone handset, incorporated with pro-audio capability in a single enclosure. No government department has pushed the boundaries of life safety, emergency response and management in the UAE as much as the Dubai Civil Defence, which continues to lead the way in protecting human lives and property during life threatening and emergency situations. It is only fitting for a responsible organization of such stature to opt for the most reliable life safety and emergency response systems on the market to meet the ever challenging demands in the fields of fire alarm and detection, public address and voice alarm (PAVA), and
mass notification.
The Dubai Civil Defence authorities decided to lead by example with installation of the first ever ATEIS VELOX 4400 INT fully integrated fire alarm, mass notification, and fire telephone system with pro-audio capability in the world. In a bid to replace its existing PAVA system with a sophisticated one, the Ministry of Interior Civil Defence Dubai Headquarters at Al Qusais became the first site to have installed the ATEIS 4400 INT control panel, giving a great head start to the product launch in the region and unparalleled recognition for the ATEIS brand. The building is a double-storey structure with several departments.
The design for the fire detection and voice alarm system specified four PAVA zones. From the reception to corridors, stairways to multiple rooms, each zone was required to have the guarantee of complete safety and easy accessibility from a centralised location.
ATEIS provided the ideal solution for fire detection and centralised monitoring of the four PAVA zones. The fully integrated and multifunctional panel is compliant with European and British standards for fire alarm, voice evacuation and sound systems, and it has the BSI Kitemark certification. The scale of the project required a single 4400 INT integrated fire alarm control panel, which is situated at reception near the entrance, making it convenient for staff members to monitor and control devices along with paging and emergency alerts.
The fire alarm system comprises 150 fire detection and alarm devices with in-built isolators, mainly heat and smoke detectors and manual call points, installed on a single loop connected to the control panel. This loop can be expanded up to 6 km with up to 240 devices, depending on loop length and load calculations. The 4400 INT control panel can support up to 4 such loops. The paging microphone console on the 4400 INT control panel is linked to a PAVA rack on the first floor. The rack houses an IDA4M audio matrix and digital signal processor (DSP), in addition to a four-channel SPAg2 Class AB amplifier.
From the PAVA rack, the network branches into four 100V loudspeaker circuits established with a total of 61 RCS5 FTS ceiling speakers for all the zones. The IDA4M monitors all the four speaker circuits. The PSSDT paging microphone console is a monochrome, touch-screen, security interface designed for simple, user-friendly operation. All faults are indicated on the screen. The SPAg2 4120 amplifier on the PAVA rack is designed for operation with either AC mains or 24DC and has indicators on the front panel to show functional and operational status of the device and fault conditions.
The integrated fire telephone handset is part of the emergency voice communication system for situations when radio communication may not work. The secure, bi-directional, full duplex voice communication system allows routing of emergency messages to any zone on fixed or roaming outstation roaming handsets. The possibilities of expansion of the system’s capabilities are as broad as one’s imagination. The Civil Defence Headquarters has a strong foundation in place for future scalability. The existing network can be expanded to support up to 200 integrated fire alarm control panels on a single network extendable up to 20 km with provisions for monitoring up to 8129 voice evacuation zones. The integrated pro-audio features enable simultaneous transmission of up to 48 high-fidelity audio channels on the network.
