PAMS Alarm Management System

PAMS is a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) product that is designed to provide centralised monitoring of the alarm status of a variety of ground based electronic equipment and systems used around an airfield, ranging from communications and navigation equipment, to power supplies and meteorological devices.

In the event of an operational system developing a fault, an alarm condition is triggered on the PAMS Site System and this is displayed at one or more locations. All alarm statuses are available to engineering and typically a defined, more critical subset is made available to Air Traffic Control (ATC) operators. This allows minor alerts and degraded states to be acted upon by engineering staff without impacting on the ATC operations.

PAMS Site Systems have been operational since 2003 and are in service in several major UK commercial airports, including Jersey, Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Birmingham and Humberside.

System Description

PAMS Site Systems can be configured in a variety of ways but all have the same essential features as can be seen in the example site infrastructure diagram below.

PAMS Site System servers are normally located in the equipment room and have a local I/O rack for hard wired digital input alarm channels.

They can also be supplied with SNMP functionality to link to any local SNMP enabled devices and wider airfield based equipment.

Interfacing via Serial Links, Dry Loops and Analogue Inputs is also supported.

The system can be interacted with through a local display (or touch screen), keyboard and mouse and this is often the approach used by engineering staff.

In some cases, the server display needs to be made available in a remote location and this can be achieved through KVM Extenders and a point to point LAN cable connection.

Typically the operators in VCR, ACR etc. are provided with at least one PAMS Workstation with touch screen interface. PAMS Workstations comprise of a small format, fan-less PC which connects through a standard ethernet LAN connection back to the main PAMS server.

This approach has the advantage of requiring less space in the equipment room racks and no need for dedicated LAN cabling for KVM Extenders in ATC.

The PAMS displays are highly configurable but are typically designed to show a traditional alarm panel where each monitored input can be seen as a button, coloured according to its current status.

For example, a steady green colour would indicate a fully operational system, whereas a flashing red colour would indicate an alarm condition has been triggered and it has not been acknowledged.

Optional Functionality

Engineer Alerts

PAMS can alert engineers to alarms by sending alerts via SMS text messaging to mobile phone, email or public address.

This ensures faster response to crucial alarms. Alarms can be prioritised and non-response escalated.

Standard Operating Procedures

PAMS can store and display the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for each alarm or alarm type.

This enables the correct response and actions are taken in response to any alarm or alarm type.

Checklists

PAMS can display checklists relevant to each alarm or alarm type.

Completion of checklists provides evidence that the correct action has been taken in response to any alarm or alarm type

Remote Monitoring

PAMS can be used for just about any type of monitoring of connected remote devices - please contact us for more details

Below is an operational PAMS display - top left.