Category Archive ความรู้กล้องวงจรปิด

Governments across the Asia Pacificregion are keen to implement smart city projects. Here is a look at some major initiatives from the perspective of Arup planning consultant, Brice Richard.

The Asia Pacific region is home to some of the world’s fastest growing cities. Four among them that have seen significant investments in smart city projects are Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Melbourne. According to Brice Richard, Digital Leader at Arup Singapore, the consultant that worked in the development of these cities, the key focus areas differed based on their requirements.

“We’ve worked with the Singapore Housing Development Board (HDB) in defining their smart city and smart public housing strategy,” Brice said.

“In Singapore, public housing is extremely important, with more than 80 percent of the population living in them. The authorities wanted to understand how technology could make public housing across the city more efficient, more livable, more vibrant.”

In Hong Kong, Arup led the Smart City Kowloon East feasibility study to transform a decommissioned airport and old industrial area into Hong Kong’s new Central Business District. In Sydney and Melbourne, the focus of some of Arup’s projects was in developing places of innovation and collaboration that would attract and empower knowledge-intensive industries, start-ups and entrepreneurs.

Identifying the focus areas

Brice Richard, Digital Leader, Arup Signapore

Brice Richard, Digital Leader,Arup Signapore Zeroing in on a focus area is critical to smart city projects. This is  either done by the city authorities before bringing in a consultant or decided after discussions with them. Talking about Arup’s experience, Brice said that for several of their projects, the consultancy was brought in at an early stage of the planning and this led to them involving more in the identification process. Hong Kong, notably, was a case where Arup was involved both at the visioning stage, and later on in the implementation steps.

“Often, the client already has an idea of what they want their ‘Smart City focus’ to be,” Brice said. “For example, in the case of Singapore’s HDB, our client already had a framework in place, and were looking for ways to improve and extend it. However, even in cases where our client knows what they want, there could be opportunities to refine their strategy, and help them prioritize. For example, our Hong Kong team jointly identified priorities for the district based on which series of pilots were selected for testing an implementation, from smart crowd management to wayfinding and smart public lighting.”
Solutions proposed and implemented
Usually, when it comes to smart city development, end users focus excessively on technology, and often get distracted by fancy gadgets, like virtual reality or drones. However, many forget that being ‘smart’ is not necessarily implementing complex technology. It also involves sound architecture and design, urban and transport planning, sustainability strategies, just to name a few.

It is the combination of all these disciplines working together toward the realization of a “Smart Vision” that makes a city, a district or a building really smart. For example, in one of its projects, Arup proposed 48 smart solutions that could potentially be implemented on the ground. However, they collaborated closely with the architects and landscape designers to ensure that these technologies were resonating with and enhancing the architectural vision of the place.

“For instance, in one of our districts in Singapore, the client was very interested in autonomous vehicles,” Brice said. “There is an element of technology in autonomous vehicles, in the vehicle itself, in customers accessing it and developing parking spaces for it. But there are also a lot of questions that are not related to technology. These include factors like architecture and infrastructure. For instance, if an automated vehicle is going around picking up people, the infrastructure needs to be built to accommodate them, and the space must be planned in a way that accommodates this very new way of moving, parking, picking people up.”
The complexity of implementation
Planning solutions based on the requirements is only half the work done. Their implementation is perhaps the most difficult part of it all. One of the reasons for this is that even when a technology may be robust, its efficient functioning is decided by several factors surrounding it. These factors often involve the integration of new technology with old technology; the cost-benefit analysis of new technology, which is often not entirely clear; and the changes in people’s skills and processes that must accompany the installation of new technology.

“Let’s say you have a technology that detects people coming into a building, and adjusts the temperature inside depending on the need,” Brice said. “Ideally, this will optimize the temperature based on the requirements. However, quite often, the HVAC systems that are already in place in the building are old and cannot be integrated with new solutions. This compatibility problems with legacy systems is a common issue.”

Another common challenge is the lack of skilled personnel. For instance, buildings will have numerous sensors installed that will collect data.
However, this is of no use if the real estate developer does not have employees who know how to make use of this data. “It is quite common to see complex BMS being implemented, but only 10 percent of its functionalities actually being used because the level of data literacy needed to act upon complex statistics is not present in the company.”
Source: Prasanth Aby Thomas, Consultant Editor Date: 2019/03/13 Related tags: smart cities, Singapore, Arup, APAC

What’s needed to secure critical infrastructure?

Needless to say, critical infrastructure facilities such as power plants and airports play a vital role in the society. Protecting them against various threats, then, becomes important. In this regard, an integrated solution that combines different security systems can be of help.

That’s according to a whitepaper by Syneictics.

The paper spells out the importance of protecting critical infrastructure. “Natural disasters, criminal activity and increasingly hostile attacks designed specifically to cause disruption all have the potential to significantly damage the critical infrastructure that a country or continent depends upon,” it said. “Making sure the right safeguards are in place to protect individual assets is vitally important and requires the right systems and tools to facilitate collaboration with public bodies.”

According to the paper, traditionally the security systems used to protect critical infrastructure are managed separately. But to combat or prevent threats that are increasingly complicated, security needs to upgrade as well. This is where the user can benefit from a surveillance command and control platform that integrates with different systems, including but not exclusive of cameras, access control, intruder detection, public help points, building management systems, microwave sensors and others, the paper said.

Intelligent integration

With added intelligence, the user can gain even greater situational awareness. “Intelligent integration takes this concept to the next level and involves utilizing command and control software to not only collate the data, but analyze it as well,” it said. “Incidents, anomalies, or meter reading deviations from any number of subsystems and from multiple geographical locations can be identified and cross-referenced against set parameters.”

The paper then listed some examples where this intelligent integration can be applied:

Power distribution network

According to the paper, theft can leave power distribution networks compromised. “Video, audio, PIR activations, and other alarm inputs from analog and IP cameras located at different (often remote and/or unmanned) substations/operation rooms are streamed directly to a central security management center to protect against potential breaches. By alerting operators to incidents in real time, site safety protocols are implemented more efficiently, thereby protecting both employees and the general public,” it said.

Water treatment plant

Water treatment plants are critical, and contamination can endanger the whole society. “Any abnormality picked up by the intruder detection and access control systems immediately alerts security teams by streaming live footage from cameras nearest the triggered alert zone,” the paper said. “Footage covering any potential water access points, that is, to identify attempts at intentional contamination, can also be monitored. The system can be programmed to prioritize data from water quality detection systems and trigger workflows to guide operators through required response protocols such as area shutdowns.”

Airport

According to the paper, data from baggage X-ray scanners, integrated with surveillance and communications systems, ensures that a live alert is prioritized on security control room video wall monitors in the event of an issue being logged by personnel in the screening area. “The control room team can then view the same X-ray footage as the baggage scanning crew, while nearby surveillance cameras monitor wider activity automatically,” it said.

The paper concluded by saying understanding customer needs and working with partners are key to implementing integrated security for infrastructure. “Command and control solutions can be configured to deliver integrations and workflows that meet exacting requirements, but tailoring to that level requires a thorough understanding of needs,” it said. “Technology is only part of the equation. Understanding the needs of the customer and developing partnerships with industry leaders will enable the intelligent integrations that can truly revolutionize the way critical infrastructure protection professionals work.”

• Source: William Pao, a&s International Date: 2019/02/06 R

Security is a growing market in EMEA and APAC as end users deal with various security issues in the region. In EMEA, some of the top verticals include government, retail and banking. Hospitality, meanwhile, is cited as a major revenue generator for Asian SIs given regional efforts to develop tourism.

Middle East

For the Middle East, the government sector also represents a major source of income due to the need to make offices and agencies secure against security risks. “Users in this sector purchase security to secure access to premises, control access limitation per user and time and monitor the access events,” said Ahmed Matari, Head of Operation and Maintenance at Kuwait-based Ideal Information.

Ahmed Matari, Head, Operation and Maintenance, Ideal Information

“We operate in Lebanon (HQ), Iraq and Nigeria. Terrorist threats drive the security needs for governments in those territories. This pushes us to deliver solutions to the highest standards with high reliability that can be counted on to mitigate any threat,” said Ziad Monla, CEO of Guardia Systems, which had a city surveillance project in Beirut. “We have implemented a turnkey city surveillance project in a record time of one year consisting of 2,000 cameras covering 350 locations, 200 license plate recognition cameras, fiber infrastructure, two data centers with one of them modular and mobile, two 50-operator control rooms packed with the latest technologies.”

Retail, meanwhile, has been cited as another important vertical market where loss prevention is being emphasized. “Retailers need security to prevent loss and crimes by activating alarm events,” Matari said. “We provide IP surveillance, access control systems and intrusion detection systems to help them avoid problems and losses.”

Banking is also a major vertical, with users increasingly looking for integrated, command center solutions. “Banks have a need to monitor all their branches from a central location. They need to be able to live view and playback cameras, control physical access, monitor intrusion and fire alarm systems all from one location,” said Monla, whose company has a project with Al Rafidain Bank in Iraq. “We are currently implementing an Oracle Core Banking solution that will enable the bank to shift to the new era of digital banking.”

Ziad Monla, CEO, Guardia Systems

According to the SIs, continued growth is expected in the Middle East due to ongoing security needs. “We expect the same revenue in 2018 compared to 2017, but we expect growth in 2019 as we are introducing new services and solutions,” Monla said.

Europe

For Europe, security remains a top priority amid incidents such as the truck attack in Nice in 2016 and the London Bridge attack in 2017. This then spawns the needs for security solutions. “Demand is driven largely by reaction. Something happens, CCTV is a solution. This is not always the right time to procure CCTV or security services, but it remains the

Kevin Bowyer, Technical director, NW security Group

e main point at which organizations contact us,” said Kevin Bowyer, Technical director of U.K.-based NW security Group.

Yet more and more, end users are using security for non-security applications to increase business intelligence, improve efficiency and enhance the customer experience, Bowyer said.

He listed the following verticals – logistics and transport, leisure and tourism, and manufacturing – as examples. “Typically, our work in these sectors comes about through ongoing operational change and expansion within the organizations that we work with. A good system not only pays for itself quickly, but paves the way for improved performance and efficiencies that our customers like to embrace and implement,” he said. “We deliver solutions that … make a real difference not only to their security, but to their business.”

According to him, with security becoming more commoditized, solutions that help drive the user’s business intelligence will be a key growth driver. “We expect growth in 2019, driven by technology advancements that increasingly deliver real security and business intelligence benefits to customers, whilst pricing of these technologies is becoming more commercially realistic,” Bowyer said.

Meanwhile, GDPR, which calls for more stringent handling of personal data, is already in effect and is expected to impact end users as they handle security. As such, SIs are working together with end users to ensure that their security systems are GDPR-compliant. “The introduction of GDPR earlier in the year will lead to higher standards in the industry, something we strongly advocate,” Bowyer said. “We ensure GDPR compliance within the system delivered over the long term.”

APAC

Sovan Hok, Technical Director, NKTech

The Asia Pacific is a growth market, with economies in the region expected to achieve GDP growth of anywhere between 4.1 and 6.9 percent this year, according to World Bank forecasts. This will leave end users with more money to spend on security, which is highly demanded given the threat landscape of the region.

“Growth this year will be higher compared to 2017, as demand is increasing. Hopefully, 2019 will see growth as well because security is essential this time,” said Vincent San Diego, VP of HYE Enterprises, a Philippines-based systems integrator.

Security is also driven by government regulations. The No CCTV No Permit rule in the Philippines, for example, calls for installation of video surveillance as a prerequisite for business permit application or renewal. In many APAC countries, new buildings are required to install fire safety systems that meet a certain standard. “To be regulation compliant is definitely a key need that that prompts users to spend on security,” said Sovan Hok, Technical Director at NKTech, a Cambodia-based systems integrator.

Hospitality is cited as a major revenue generator for SIs given regional efforts to develop tourism. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, travel and tourism investment in Southeast Asia in 2017 was US$48.8 billion, or 6.4 percent of total investment, and the figure is expected to reach $86.8 billion by 2028. Against this backdrop, more and more hotels and casinos are being built, triggering security needs.

Vincent San Diego, VP, HYE Enterprises

Hok cites hotels and casinos as a major vertical market for them. “The needs of end users in those sectors include surveillance of people activities, proof recording and safety. We offer video surveillance system, access control, light automation and car parking systems to suit their needs,” he said.

Commercial buildings are another strong vertical. Specifically, a construction boom in the APAC region is further driving growth in this sector. “Fast growth of construction is definitely seen in our country,” Hok said. “We expect revenue to be higher this year than 2017, due to the rapidly grow of construction industry with foreign investors.”

Source: William Pao, a&s International Date: 2018/11/14 Related tags: EMEA, APAC
https://www.asmag.com/showpost/27368.aspx?name=news