| Microwave PID Systems have a low false alarm rate compared to other systems |
Sensurity Ltd, recently released an educational security white paper on ‘Reducing False Alarms in Perimeter Intrusion Detection Systems (PIDS)’.
Microwave PIDS reduce false alarms
“All Perimeter Intrusion Detection Systems are susceptible to false alarms caused by animals, weather and the movement of trees and foliage and it is critical that all PID manufacturers continuously strive to lower these false alarm rates” said George Redpath, Technical Director for Sensurity Ltd.
“Even a very low perimeter Nuisance Alarm Rate (NAR) has a severe effect on security system performance and can create headaches for operators to manage”.
Microwave PID Systems in particular have a low false alarm rate in comparison to other systems. However to make microwave a suitable PID system for a wide range of sites (over water, very close to fences and areas of dense foliage) it is imperative to continuously reduce false alarm rates.
Microwave PIDS work by analysing changes in the received signal between a transmitter and a receiver. From a historical point of view they have suffered from an inability to discriminate between a human target and these false alarm events.
Analysing PID system attributes
Within the 'Reducting False Alarms in Perimter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS)' white paper the three attributes of a PID system are investigated to analyse their potential to decrease the false alarm events caused by animals, weather and the movement of trees and foliage. Operating Frequency, Antenna and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) of the data are analysed.
The outcome of this report is that a Microwave PID system operating at a frequency of 5.8GHz, with a planar antenna and using advanced Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques, provides a very attractive solution to reducing false alarm rates in perimeter security applications. For this reason microwave PIDS have the potential to be deployed in many more sites than previously thought suitable in the past; including most recently port applications.