This military airfield located in South East Asia boosts a runway longer than 3,000 m. The airfield houses maritime patrol aircrafts, jet tankers, as well as military personnel. Situated in a key area along Asia’s maritime peninsula, the airfield deploys aircrafts to protect the waters under the skies, further strengthening seaward defence and sea lines of communication of the region.
Canals and drainage systems were constructed at the airfield to keep the runway and taxiways free of surface water and prevent flooding due to frequent rain in the region. The canals and drainage systems created points of entry for potential intruders. To secure these points, large drain gratings were installed.
In 2016, the military airfield started sourcing for an innovative and reliable Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS). They sought for a solution that could meet critical requirements of a military airfield’s security standards.
Typically, the PIDS adapts only for a singular type of infrastructure, where one setting fits all. However, there are various types of perimeter infrastructures within a single fence line; walls, different fence types and drain gratings. The reaction from an intrusion for each structure differs, and the typical PIDS will not be able to adapt appropriately with just one setting.
To ensure good intrusion detectability, most PIDS would set a high level of sensitivity for their system. This in turn would lead to high nuisance alarm rates when the weather turns. This also affects the PIDS installed along the drain gratings, increasing nuisance alarm rates whenever water gushes through the canal.
To counter the nuisance alarms along the fence line or at the drain gratings, the PIDS would decrease the sensitivity level. Most of the time, sensitivity levels are decreased to a point where there is a chance of no detection during a real intrusion, especially during bad weather.
The airfield has plans to expand the airfield with a mixed of permanent and temporary fences to accommodate the expansion. The PIDS in the field needs to be modular, with sections that are independent of each other as not to affect a huge perimeter length of security during the expansion.
To be able to perform with more than 95% detection rate for all relevant intrusion and tamper scenarios, even at the drain gratings when above water or submerged.
To achieve an average of more than or equal to 3 per km per day in actual environment after taking into account the disturbance from jet blasts and changes in canal’s water flow rate.
To achieve pinpoint accuracy of more than 5-meters even at drain gratings.
To be able to deploy on a variety of perimeter infrastructures including temporary ones, and the ability to minimise system downtime when perimeter line is being expanded or constructed.
Integrate to existing Integrated Security Management System (ISMS) and leverage existing Pan-Tilt Zoom (PTZ) cameras.
With these extensive challenges, the military airfield managed to find the right solution to counter these challenges. Our PIDS was deployed along 16 km of the military airfield’s perimeter fences, along with 40 m of continuous storm drains.
Using advanced fibre-based sensors embedded in fibre optics cables and mounted on existing fences and drain gratings, the PIDS is able to detect intrusions such as climbing, cutting of fence / drain gratings, tampering of cable, unnatural disturbance on the fence and immediately notify the security personnel. Paired with the PIDS solution was Integrated Perimeter Alarm Management System (iPAMS), which is capable of interacting with the military’s airfield existing CCTV and Integrated Security Management Systems (ISMS).
The PIDS can be implemented on a variety of fence types; chain-linked, welded-mesh, palisade, solid wall and drain gratings.
It is a one-step deployment of securing a single pass of PIDS sensor cables with high-grade PVC cable ties onto perimeter fencing. For drain gratings deployment, the sensor cables can be routed down from the fence line and through a PVC tube secured to the drain gratings. There is no electronics and power supply in the field, so there is no fear for any sort for electro-magnetic and radio frequency interference.
An open-loop system coupled with the flexibility of the sensor cables deployment, segregates the sensor cables into channels. Each channel acts independently without affecting others. This addressed the scenario of perimeter expansion, where the user may remove or disarm a singular channel for fence construction or removal without fully compromising on the airfield’s entire perimeter security.
The proprietary signal processing software has the ability to adapt and adjust automatically to different environmental factors and weather elements along the fence line and canals, reducing nuisance alarm rates without comprising the integrity of the system’s intrusion sensitivity.
Fibre sensor spacing is customised to the perimeter length and type of perimeter infrastructure, and the sensor accuracy for pinpointing an intrusion location range is typically ± 2.4 m. This leverages the features of PTZ cameras, which can be preset and auto-trigger to slew to the point of intrusion and provides users the ability to visually verify the alarm and track the intruder.
Validated by various institutes such as the UK Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure and Safe Skies, the PIDS has proven its effectiveness when deployed in different scenarios ranging from substations to airfields, and the capability to cater secured perimeter intrusion detection to any facility.
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