“Don’t look away for a second” might as well be the mantra of the modern security world.
Technology changes fast. Threat environments change fast. And the simple truth is that in today’s security world, even a single intruder can do unprecedented amounts of damage in just a few seconds.
This state of affairs means that, when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure, high-value assets, properties, and human lives, nothing less than continuous monitoring of site perimeters will do. Threats need to be detected and responded to as quickly as possible, which means not just 24/7 surveillance—but 60/60/24/7 surveillance.
The technology of choice for continuous monitoring of site perimeters is compact surveillance radar (CSR). Radar’s ability to extend perimeter surveillance, detect perimeter breaches, and maintain continuous, second-by-second surveillance even through harsh weather conditions makes it the preferred security solution for many businesses and property owners as well as many security systems integrators.
Of course, the best perimeter security designs include multiple layers of detection, deterrence, and access control. Radar alone should not be regarded as a catch-all security solution. That said, more than just providing an extensive top layer of intrusion detection, Spotter Global radars include robust system integration capabilities that allow discrete security system elements to work together in harmony, reduce nuisance alarms, and create the multi-layered security design many sites need.
Extensive integration capacities, along with site-customized alarm zone capabilities, industry-leading alarm filtering, and enterprise-level management tools have made Spotter Global radars a force-multiplying lynchpin in many high-value security sites and systems around the world.
Key Takeaways
- Compact surveillance radars (CSRs) are reliable tools for continuous monitoring of site perimeters.
- CSRs detect targets through obscuring weather conditions that sometimes temporarily obscure security cameras and other sensors.
- Spotter Global Systems include the NetworkedIO (Command and Control / C2) with 17 different behavioral filters including Radar AI that can eliminate the majority of nuisance alarms from various sources.
- CSR integration capacities allow for the creation of site-customized alarm zones that automate responses to approaching potential intrusions and active breaches.
- CSR technology can assist in maintaining situational awareness, perimeter surveillance, intrusion detection and response, and asset tracking.
- Largely used for large security sites, advancements in radar security may soon see CSRs used to help protect smaller security sites as well.
Advantages of Radar Technology for Continuous Monitoring
One of the primary advantages of radar technology in security is its ability to operate in all weather conditions, including rain, fog, and darkness. Unlike traditional surveillance cameras, which may be hindered by adverse weather or low-light conditions, radar systems can provide reliable detection and tracking capabilities regardless of environmental factors. This makes radar technology an ideal choice for the continuous monitoring of outdoor security applications, such as perimeter protection for critical infrastructure sites and border surveillance.
Another advantage of radar technology is its long-range detection capabilities. Radar systems can detect and track ground-based or airborne objects at distances of several kilometers, providing security personnel with early warning of potential threats, long before such threats can reach a property’s fence line or the airspace above a property. This long-range detection capability is particularly valuable for securing large areas, such as airports, seaports, and critical infrastructure that may be easily targeted by either on-foot threats, vehicular threats, or unfriendly drone activity.
Most radar security sites, concerned primarily with ground threats, will set up enough 2D radar coverage to form a “wall” of detection around their site. For sites particularly worried about drone activity, however, Spotter Global’s AX250 radar can provide 3D Dome coverage, allowing security personnel to monitor the airspace directly above their entire site from a single vantage point.
Continuous—But Not Cluttered: Filtering Nuisance Alarms with Radar
While the increased monitoring range of radars would, normally, lead to an increased susceptibility to false alarms, Spotter Global radars are a step ahead.
Spotter Global radars combine radar, camera, and video ai data with advanced signal processing algorithms with artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML). The result is the NetworkedIO or “NIO”, a central command and control (C2) system that can quickly categorize detected targets. By analyzing the size, shape, and movement of targets, the NIO system, with just a little bit of on-site training, can distinguish between humans, vehicles, wildlife, drones, and other categories of targets.
Before causing an alarm, targets are automatically filtered according to their categories. As a result, false and nuisance alarms from sprinklers, tossed branches, local squirrels, migrating geese, and other targets irrelevant to security are filtered out. This is a significant security advantage, especially for sites where security presence, access, and resources are more limited, as is the case with many remote critical infrastructure sites.
This powerful combination of precise processing algorithms with AI filtering has, in some cases, led to as much as a 90% reduction in nuisance alarms for sites with Spotter radar security systems. Such reduction in nuisance alarms can go a long way in reducing false alarm fees with law enforcement and preserving security personnel resources, allowing them to keep their time and attention on real security threats.
Radar-Integrated Systems Allow for Customized Alarm Zones
Integration capacity is a key feature to consider in any security solution, especially as integration capacities can significantly increase the ROI of security devices. Fortunately, Spotter compact surveillance radars have extensive integration capabilities that, if harnessed, can bring out the best in a security system.
Firstly, with proper integration with a site’s cameras and VMS (video management system), radar integrations can greatly enhance real-time situational awareness. While the radars ensure all targets will be detected and tracked at the earliest opportunity, the automatic slewing of PTZ cameras according to radar coordinates provides visual confirmation of targets at the earliest opportunity. The simultaneous recording by the VMS system allows security personnel to be notified, assess, and respond to potential security threats with maximum efficiency. As an added bonus, radar-camera integrations may even reduce the number of cameras needed to maintain situational awareness on a site.
But it’s not just situational awareness that can be enhanced.
When radar’s target detection and tracking capacities are combined with a site’s various alarm, access control, and deterrence mechanisms, alarm zones can be created. Alarm zones are areas within the radar’s field of view that, if intruded upon by a viable (non-nuisance) target, trigger specific, automated security responses. Made according to client preferences, a radar-enabled alarm zone may, for example, trigger floodlights if a target comes within 500 m of the fenceline. Another alarm zone may be arranged to initiate a lockdown and security notification if a target gets within 300 m of the fence line, if a vehicle loiters on the nearby road, or if someone inside the property gets too close to a prohibited area. Yet another alarm zone may initiate a call to law enforcement if a human or vehicle comes within 50, 100, or 150 m of the fence line.
With such alarm zones, made possible through radar integrations, a site’s security design can be much more responsive, proactive, and customized to a site’s specific security needs. A number of companies offer network-connected, solid-state FMCW radars, but that is about where their similarities with Spotter Global end.
Comparison between the Spotter Radars and other CSR Vendors
Most CSR vendors produce and sell entry-level radars, target a mass market, and use outsourced RF circuitry to connect to their radars’ processor boards. Spotter Global, on the other hand, focuses its marketing efforts towards specific verticals, often with unique and challenging use case scenarios. Such sites, usually categorized as critical infrastructure facilities, such as substations, ports, prisons, airports, etc require the engineer to tweak and adjust the Spotter radar design and usage to its environment to ensure the highest probability of alarming on targets of interest and very low false alarm rates.
As for specific product offerings, Spotter Global sells sixteen different radar models with detection ranges of person from 100 m to 1500 m. For precise calibration, to allow for the best detection and tracking results, Spotter radar can be adjusted with ten different parameters, each with multiple steps. Many non-Spotter radars allow only two “On” or “Off” parameters to be adjusted by setting them to be either. These crucial differences have a significant impact on whether a security design project will ultimately prove successful in perimeter defense or not. Fine-tuned, site-customized radar adjustments are especially important for achieving low false alarm rates. This holds all the more true for complex critical infrastructure sites that require intelligent and flexible approaches to security design.
Another important factor is product design. All Spotter radar hardware and software is designed and developed in-house from the hardware and software in the radar to the sensors to the back-end radar management server to the operator interface. Not only does this allow for the fine-tuning of every part of the system, it also allows Spotter to maintain a holistic system view focused on delivering high value to the end users.
Stepping back to a wider, more site-comprehensive view, Spotter Global offers a unique degree of flexible radar management system or Command and Control (C2) when compared to other security radar vendors. To ensure site-wide situational awareness, Spotter provides a radar management system option, NetworkedIO, also known as the NIO to customers. Comparable to any of the leading VMS systems, the NIO enables customers to build large radar systems with multiple radars and PTZ cameras from many different manufacturers. This central C2 system coordinates all tracks (from radars, cameras, ADS-B, GPS, etc) and, using seventeen different customizable filters equipped with Radar AI, makes the aforementioned alarm zone capabilities possible.
Finally, to provide system-wide situational awareness on enterprise-level systems, Spotter Global’s Integrated Management Center (IMC) is engineered to provide information for remotely managing multiple Spotter systems, spread out hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. Connected to all the NetworkedIOs a customer has in their system, the Integrated Management Center remotely monitors the health and alarm performance of hundreds of sites and thousands of radars, ensuring any issues that arise can be quickly identified and addressed. To accomplish this the IMC includes the following:
- Reporting on all devices, including online or offline status
- Precise health problem or alarm identification in two clicks
- Direct connection to NetworkedIO site management devices
- Reports showing the health of the entire system over a period of time
- Reports showing the pattern of alarms over time, by site, and by device
- State-of-the-art TrackRank© charting for alarm analysis, filtering, data analytics, and reporting of alarms
- Stay in compliance with easy-to-generate reports showing the health of the entire system
No CSR company in the world provides any options for enterprise-level management or remote monitoring of radars.
In summary, other CSR have good, ultra-short (60m range) radars that allow installers to fill small security gaps and blind spots with more efficiency and a cheaper price than other perimeter security options. The Spotter system, however, is built for larger and more complex security demands. The perimeter security solution offered by Spotter Global is a very mature, industrial-grade system that includes all the software (C2 and Health Management) and hardware necessary to implement, customize, and maintain a very large-scale radar perimeter security system or multiple systems spanning across large enterprises.
Applications of Radar Technology in Security
Radar technology has a wide range of applications in the field of security, including continuous perimeter protection, intrusion detection, surveillance, and asset tracking.
In perimeter protection applications, radar systems can be used to detect and track unauthorized intruders attempting to breach a secure area as well as filter out nuisance alarms. By recognizing and filtering out non-threats and flagging true potential threats, radar security systems can provide early warning of potential threats to security personnel and trigger automated system security responses to most effectively mitigate security risks.
Intrusion detection is another key application of radar technology in security. Radar systems can be integrated with alarm systems to provide real-time alerts when unauthorized individuals or vehicles enter restricted areas either inside or outside a property perimeter. This capability is especially useful for securing critical infrastructure, such as power plants, water treatment facilities, and government buildings from the dangers of both internal and external interference.
Surveillance is another important application of radar technology in security. Radar systems can be used to monitor the movement of people and vehicles in public spaces, such as city centers, transportation hubs, and event venues. Spotter Global radars, for example, are used to help monitor the two million annual visitors to the Mt. Rushmore National Monument, ensuring none of the site’s visitors stray from approved paths and areas to where they could endanger themselves or the monument. By providing continuous monitoring and tracking capabilities, radar technology can help security personnel identify, monitor, and mitigate potential security threats in crowded environments.
Asset tracking is also a valuable application of radar technology in security. Radar systems can be used to monitor the movement of valuable assets, such as vehicles, equipment, and high-value goods. By providing real-time tracking and monitoring capabilities, radar technology can help security personnel prevent theft and unauthorized access to critical assets, mitigating the security risks that are typically heightened when assets are on the move.
Where Will Radar Go in the Future?
As radar technology becomes more affordable and user-friendly, its adoption in the security industry is expected to continue to grow. Ongoing advancements in security radar hardware and software are leading to the development of more compact, affordable radar systems that can be adapted to a wider range of security needs. These advancements are expected to make radar technology more accessible to a wider range of organizations and applications, including small and medium-sized businesses, public institutions, and residential communities.
At Spotter Global we have an attitude of constant improvement that is reflected in our radar technology development efforts and innovator’s promise to enhance and adapt our capabilities for the changing security needs of our customers. Our latest advancements include PoE (Power over Ethernet) compatible radars, increased range radars, increased AX250 resistance to high EM (electromagnetic) environments, improved user interface (NIO), and improved enterprise-management tools.
Conclusion
In conclusion, radar technology plays a critical role in the future of security, providing continuous monitoring and detection capabilities that are essential for protecting people, assets, and infrastructure. The advantages of radar technology, including its all-weather operation, long-range detection capabilities, integration and alarm zone capabilities, and alarm filtering make it an ideal choice for security applications. By integrating radar technology with other security systems, organizations can enhance their ability to detect, track, and respond to potential security threats.