When taggers spray-painted the canvas construction fence at a 21-acre religious and cultural complex in Chino Hills, California, the incident indicated a need for better security. For the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan center located at the site, a robust perimeter protection system would be required to keep destructive intruders from possibly damaging an intricate and elaborate construction project going on inside the fence.
To protect the entire site, and in particular to protect construction of their new temple, the BAPS community turned to an intelligent outdoor video analytics solution from SightLogix.
The new temple, a traditional Hindu Mandir, has been built of carved, pink sandstone blocks, each block created by artisans and sent one-by-one from India, together reflecting millions of man-hours of work. Five existing buildings on the Chino Hills site include one whose exterior is intricately carved in teak wood - making the removal of graffiti virtually impossible.
The Chino Hills complex is part of the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), an organisation that began in a small village in India in 1907 and has since grown into a worldwide socio-spiritual organisation dedicated to community service, peace and harmony. The complex includes a reception building, cultural assembly hall, classroom building, gymnasium and residences for the Swamis, in addition to the Mandir under construction. Much of the 21-acre site will be landscaped open space along with access roadways and parking, with several more buildings planned in the future.
The system at BAPS
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| Robust perimeter protection system for the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan center |
SightSensor perimeter security cameras are positioned on 30-foot poles located between 400 and 1,200 feet apart around the perimeter of the 21-acre 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, SightSensor video analytic cameras can detect human targets over an area covering as much as 1,500 feet, providing a blanket of security coverage for critical areas around the BAPS facility.
SightSensor cameras use a high degree of image processing directly integrated with on-board video analytics to filter the natural movement of the outdoors and determine when an intrusion has occurred, sending only credible alarms if a person tries to breach the BAPS perimeter. These alarms are set by rules which can include size, direction, speed, 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 also dynamically correct lighting and eliminate tree motion. The SightSensor also uses AES encryption to eliminate network intrusion and tampering.
At BAPS in California, each 30-foot pole also has a Pelco pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) analogue dome camera automatically controlled by a SightLogix SightTracker. When the SightSensor camera detects an intruder within the viewing area, it provides the target's precise location to the SightTracker which automatically steers the pan-tilt-zoom camera to zero in and continually track the source of the alarm. All of the information showing detected targets, as well as the SightSensor and associated PTZ field of views are displayed onto the SightLogix SightMonitor topology map of the facility. At BAPS, each SightSensor 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 me views of my whole perimeter, and it gives me the option of reviewing these areas visually," says KV Swami. "Most important, it gives me early notice of an intrusion so any damage can be prevented."
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 extended temp range (from minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit to 158 degrees Fahrenheit). Such packaging extends life and detection accuracy in any environment.
Full situational awareness
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| 21-acre religious and cultural complex in Chino Hills, California |
The SightLogix perimeter security solution at BAPS is integrated with Genetec's Omnicast IP video surveillance management system. As a Certified Genetec Partner, SightLogix' outdoor video surveillance system is fully compatible with Omnicast. The pre-integrated solution enables all alarm and target information detected by SightLogix cameras to be displayed by the Genetec video management software (VMS). When a SightLogix camera detects a target that violates a user-defined security policy, the camera provides the precise Geographical Information System (GIS)-based target location to Genetec, which displays the nature of the threat and enables easy viewing of the video on the Genetec system for full situational awareness.
Ron Nyberg, regional sales manager of Focus Micro, who introduced the SightLogix technology to BAPS, says a lesson of the BAPS installation is the need to look broadly at system costs rather than fixating on the cost of a single component. "If you look at it from the overall design perspective, in the end the system will be more cost-effective," he says.
