Faith in Security
Outdoor video protection increases personal freedom at religious and cultural center
- By Del V. Salvi
- Oct 01, 2010
Repeated incidents of vandals spray-painting the temporary
construction fence at a 21-acre religious and cultural
center in Chino Hills, Calif., indicated a need for a more
intelligent perimeter protection and monitoring solution for
the property. For the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir and
Cultural Center, a robust perimeter protection system was
required to allow facility administrators to better monitor the
perimeter of the property and protect an intricate and elaborate
construction project going on inside. To better protect
the entire site, and to safeguard the intricate architectural
finishes of the project, the BAPS community turned to an
intelligent outdoor surveillance solution.
The new temple, a traditional Hindu Mandir, is being built of
carved, pink sandstone blocks -- each block created by artisans
and sent from India, together representing millions of man-hours
of work. Five existing buildings on the Chino Hills site include
one whose exterior is intricately hand-carved in teak wood.
The Chino Hills project is part of the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar
Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, an organization that
began in a small village in India in 1907 and has since grown into
a worldwide socio-spiritual organization dedicated to community
service, peace and harmony. The complex includes a reception
building, a cultural assembly hall, a classroom building, a gymnasium
and residences for the Swamis, in addition to the Mandir
under construction. Much of the 21-acre site will feature landscaped
open space, along with access roadways and parking, with
several more buildings planned for the future.
Protect the Perimeter
Before turning to SightLogix intelligent
video surveillance technology to protect
the site perimeter, BAPS had considered
using a fiber-optic system to detect intruders
based on the vibrations of a sensor
cable attached to the fence.
“We gave them the cost comparisons,
and the minute we did a demo on Sight-
Logix, they instantly decided,” said Ron
Nyberg, regional sales manager of FocusMicro,
who introduced the SightLogix
technology to BAPS. “For aesthetic reasons,
they were happy with the fact that
they didn’t have to physically strap something
to their fence.”
Aesthetics will become even more important
when the temporary chain-link
fence is later replaced by a permanent ornamental
concrete and wrought iron fence
surrounding the complex.
“We had looked at other options around
the perimeter,” said KV Swami of the BAPS
Center in California. “We found they would
be very expensive, and hard to implement,
and would result in many false alarms. We
had a demo of the SightLogix equipment,
and we were very impressed with its ability
to allow for pre-emptive decision-making
based on the data it provided.
“Their product is clearly durable and
well-built for the outdoors, and we liked
that it would give us the results we were
trying to achieve.”
The System at BAPS
Six SightSensor visible sensor cameras are
positioned on 30-foot poles located between
400 and 1,200 feet apart around the
perimeter of the site, each viewing an area
that overlaps the adjacent sensor’s field of
view to avoid any blind spots. Designed
for long-range protection of high-value
assets in any outdoor environment, the
SightSensor cameras can actually detect a
human or moving target within a range of
1,500 feet, providing redundant coverage
in critical areas for the BAPS facility.
Each SightSensor camera uses onboard
video analytics that determines when an
intrusion has occurred and creates an
alarm if a person tries to breach the BAPS
perimeter. These alarms are set by rules,
which can include size, direction and other
variables. Multiple image processors in
each camera compensate for outdoor issues
such as camera motion -- from wind,
for example, when the camera is positioned
at the top of a 30-foot pole -- and
dynamically correct lighting and eliminate
tree motion. The camera also uses AES
encryption to eliminate network intrusion
and tampering.
At BAPS, each 30-foot pole also has a
Pelco PTZ analog dome camera automatically
controlled by a SightLogix Sight-
Tracker. When the camera detects an intruder
within the viewing area, it provides
the target’s precise location to the Sight-
Tracker, which sends a signal to direct the
PTZ camera to zero in and continually
track the source of the alarm. The image
from the analog dome camera is sent back
to SightTracker, which converts it into an
IP camera feed for the video management
system. All of the information showing
detected targets, as well as the SightSensor
and associated PTZ fields of view is displayed
on the facility’s topology map. At
BAPS, each camera shoots down the fence
line, and each PTZ dome can zoom in
on any alarm point within the intelligent
camera’s broader field of view.
“Going with this system gives us views
of our entire perimeter, and it gives us the
option of monitoring these areas visually
as well as intelligently,” Swami said.
“Most importantly, it gives us an early
notice of an intrusion or activity on our
perimeter so that appropriate decisions
can be made.”
The SightSensor camera is built for
long life and is contained in a NEMA 4x
nitrogen-purged enclosure that enables the
camera to operate in outdoor and harsh
environments, including an extended temperature
range -- from minus 50 degrees to
158 degrees Fahrenheit. Such packaging
extends its life and detection accuracy in
any environment.
Full Situational Awareness
solution enables all alarm and target information
detected by the cameras to be
displayed by the Genetec video management
software. When a camera detects a
target that violates a user-defined security
policy, the camera provides the precise
GIS-based target location to Genetec,
which displays the nature of the threat and
enables easy viewing of the video on the
system for full situational awareness.
Nyberg said a lesson of the BAPS installation
is the need to look broadly at
system costs rather than fixating on the
price of a single component, such as the
high-end cameras.
“If you look at it from the overall
design perspective, the system will be
much lower priced based on its longrange
performance and outdoor packaging,”
Nyberg said
This article originally appeared in the October 2010 issue of Network-Centric Security.
About the Author
Del V. Salvi is a freelance writer based in New York.