Create Rules

Boundary Areas, Boundary Circles, and Fleet Guard Zone can be set to trigger rules. Rules are defined in the Alarms Options:

Rules are used to trigger action(s) when a target (AIS, ARPA, or Fleet) exhibits a specific behavior while inside a zone (area, circle, or guard zone).

To add a rule, click on the "Add" button. The Rule configuration window appears:

The configuration window contains three tabs to define the "Conditions" that trigger the rule, the "Filters" you may want to apply (to limit the rule to specific type of targets or to a specific schedule),  and the "Actions" tab to define the action that are performed when the rule is triggered.

Conditions

First, use the "Conditions" tab to select the type of event that will trigger the rule (note that you can select multiple events):

  • Enter Area: The target enters the area. This also includes ARPA targets that "appear" into the area when they are acquired (this can be the case when the same area is set to trigger the rule and also set to be an Automatic Acquisition Area).

  • Exit Area: The target exits the area. Note that ARPA target that get lost inside an area do not trigger the exit event.

  • Restart: The target must stop inside the area first (fall below the speed threshold defined under the "parameters" button) then restart by crossing the restart speed threshold or the distance from the stop position (in case the target is drifting slowly). Note that the stop and restart speed values are using independent settings.

  • Stop: The target stops in the area (falls below the speed threshold defined under the "parameters" button).

  • Speed: Target that goes over or under a specific speed value or target that falls in or out a specific range of speed values. The behavior can be adjusted when clicking on the "parameters" button.

  • CPA/TCPA: Target that are inside the area and met the CPA/TCPA threshold defined under the "parameters" button. The CPA/TCPA rule is useful to watch if any target is on a collision course with the reference position or with a fixed location (lat/lon entered manually). Then, the user can adjust two parameters: a distance named "CPA" (Closest Point of Approach) and a time named "TCPA" (time to closest point of approach) which would need to be met to trigger the rule.

Filters

Then, the "Filters" tab allows you to define specific filter(s) that will restrict the rule from being triggered:

Start by selecting the type of target that can trigger the rule (AIS, ARPA or Fleet). For AIS targets, you can click on "Parameters" to restrct the rule to a specific Vessel Type or Navigation status (as transmitted by the AIS).

You can also restrict the rule to specific classification (refer to Target Classification for more information). This is very useful for excluding targets that have a specific classification (uncheck the classification for which you don't want the rule to be triggered).

TIPS: The AIS Favorite allows you to predetermine the classification of known vessel using their MMSI. For example, if you have a list of vessels that are allowed to cross a specific area without triggering a rule, simply assign the classification to "Friend" in the AIS directory and exclude the "Friend" classification from the rule.

Rules can be set to follow a schedule. This means that you could restrict a rule to be triggered by a target only during specific day and/or time. This can be useful if you want to design rules to be only operating at night or during the week end. If you want to enable the schedule, select "Enable Schedule" and click on the "parameters" button:

Select the day(s) you want the rule to be enabled. For the selected day, select "All Day" if you want the rule to operate from 12:00AM to 11:59PM that day or select a time range (unselect "All Day").

Note: If you set a day to operate on a time range where the starting time is set after the ending time, the rule will be active until the following day. Ex: if you set a rule to operate only on Sunday from 5PM to 7AM, it will operate on Sunday from 5PM to 11:59PM and Monday from 12:00AM until 7AM continuously (even if Monday is not selected).

Finally you can set an interval during which the rule cannot be re-triggered. This can be useful with ARPA targets to avoid multiple false alarms.

Note: In any case, the same target cannot trigger the same rule twice within 10 seconds. This is to avoid a target located at the limit of a boundary or near a speed value to trigger consecutively the same rule twice in a short period of time.

Actions

Click on the "Actions" tab to select the various action(s) that will be performed when the rule is triggered:

  • Change Classification: Automatically assign a classification to the target that break the rule condition. Refer to Target Classification for more information.

  • Trigger Alert: Show a message in the Status Bar displaying the rule name or a custom message (supporting dynamic tag). Click on the "parameters" button if you want to play a sound, set the priority of the notification ("High" notification will be displayed in red, "Medium" will be displayed in yellow and "Low" will be displayed in green) or adjust the Time Out. By default, the Time Out is set to 30 seconds. This means that the notification will be displayed on the status bar (and optionally play a sound) for 30 seconds unless the user clicks on the Status Bar or acknowledge the alarm from the Alarm list before the Time Out is reached. If you set the Time Out to "none", the notification will play until the user acknowledges it manually (from the Alarm List or by clicking on the status bar).

  • Launch File: Open a file (.exe, .cmd or .bat) and pass the following argument in parameter (in order):
    - Type of Target ("ARPA" or "AIS")
    - Target ID (MMSI for an AIS targets and ID for ARPA)
    - Lat/Lon
    - UTC Date
    - UTC Time
    - Rule Name
    - Target Name (ARPA will repeat the ID)
    - Name of Area that triggered the rule
    User can select if the program or script is ran normally (pop up window in front of TimeZero), minimized (does not appear) or maximized (pops up a full window in front of TimeZero)

Example of argument output (with an AIS): Ais 206124607 35-12.9448-N,139-46.7543-E 2012-06-22 00:38:18 "Rule Name" "M/V Vessel"

  • Center Chart on Target: Center the chart on the target that breaks the rule condition. If you select "Zoom" (under parameters), the scale of the chart will automatically be adjusted to display the target and the reference point on the screen and if you select "Keep Target on Screen" TimeZero will pan the chart automatically to follow the target. Note that when this action is executed, the target is selected automatically (so that it is highlighted in the lists), but you can uncheck this option if you want.

  • Control Camera: Move the camera onto the target that breaks the rule condition. The camera can be set to "Lock" on the target (follow the target), or just "Move" on the target (move one time without tracking the target with the camera). It is possible to select which camera to control: the closest camera (from the point where the target broke the rule), the active camera, one or multiple specific camera (selected by name). When you select to control the closest or one specific camera, it is also possible to "Activate" this camera (simply check "Activate Camera"). Activating a camera is very useful when you have a Camera display (NavData or Camera WorkSpace) that is set to display the "Active" Camera. In this case, not only will the relevant camera track the target, but the video source will also change automatically to display that camera and draw the attention of the operator. If the selected camera is already busy tracking another target, you can choose the behavior of the rule (do nothing, overwrite, use classification as a means of priority, or select another camera). 

  • Target Tracking: Turns the target track that breaks the rule condition to ON or OFF (click on the "Parameters" button). Notice that enabling this action could potentially result in a large number of tracks being generated on the chart. If you enable this action, it is highly recommended that you create a dedicated layer (from the Manage Layer window) and set that layer as the default layer. This will allow you to show/hide all the tracks easily and purge that layer (delete it) as needed.

  • Send AIS Message: Send a Text message to the AIS target (Class A only) that broke the rule condition. Note that the "ABM" sentence must be selected as an output (on the port where the AIS transmitter is connected) for this action to work properly. Click on "Parameter" to type the message to send.

  • Create Event: Create an Event in the time line and in the Event list when you have the Record and Replay module. This can be useful to mark and retrieve specific occurrence of events and display the full situation at that time thanks to the recorded data. By default, the event will be named after the rule title, but this can be changed by clicking on the "parameters" button and selecting "User Defined". A description can also be added.

  • Send E-Mail: Automatically send an email to the specify e-mail address. It is possible to customize the message and even insert "smart-tags" that would replace dynamically its content according to the target information:

  • Send SMS: Automatically send a SMS to the specify phone number (international format). It is possible to customize the message and even insert "smart-tags" that would replace dynamically its content according to the target information.

IMPORTANT: Both E-Mail and SMS requires TimeZero to be logged in to a My TimeZero account.

  • Trigger External Relay: Trigger an external relay using a SeaLevel Network IO (110E/120E). The network relay can be toggled, turned ON or OFF, or be set to a temporary state (ex: Turn ON for 15 seconds, and then turn OFF).

  • Display Message: Display a message in a dedicated window to the operator. The message can be formatted using HTML tags and can contain "smart-tag" that would replace dynamically its content according to the target information. This is useful when you want to display detailed instructions or workflow procedure to an operator when a rule is triggered.

Once all the parameters are defined, click on OK to close the window and add the rule to the rule list.

Link Rules to Areas

After creating a rule, you need to select its level (1 to 10) from the Rules list:

The "Level" is an indirection that is used to link rules to a specific boundary area, boundary circle, or fleet guard zone. To attach a boundary to a rule, right click on an areas, circle or fleet guard zone and select a monitoring level:

Note that multiple monitoring levels can be assigned to the same area. When an area is set with a monitoring level(s), it will trigger the corresponding rule(s).

IMPORTANT: Areas that are set up to trigger rules are active even if they are not displayed on the chart (even when their layer is turned OFF).