PC to keep Peace and Harmony (C02)

This is a case study of a real-life installation in a residential campus in Auckland for which a PC plays a central role. The Compucon team installed the PC initially in 2012 for video surveillance purposes when the village renovation program was halfway through. The campus consists of a number of long-term residential units along 3 open-air corridors, a carpark for 20+ cars, a bike barn and a rubbish bin shed. The renovation was completed a few years later, and the initial PC was relocated in 2019 for a better utilization of real estate spaces by the campus management. The function set of the PC was expanded in 2022 to include carpark gate access control using the latest UHF RFID (ultra-high frequency radio frequency identity) technology.

An intrusion incident happened recently when an intruder car followed a legitimate car going into the carpark before the gate was closed. Tailgating is not preventable because it is not unusual for 2 legitimate cars to enter or exit the carpark gate at about the same time. The intruder parked his car in one of the parking spaces and came out of the car to look at the campus briefly. He then found he could not get out of the carpark unless there was a legitimate car going out of the gate. The security system recorded all the activities of the intruder whilst inside the campus, including his facial details, a dog inside his car, the car model and license plate number. He did not do anything harmful on that visit. Presumably, he had some ideas in his mind that we do not know.

On a daily basis, the campus management found that various public facilities such as rubbish bins and bike barn were subject to abuse from time to time. Bikes not properly tied down could be stolen and rubbish bins could be filled up by a single resident in a single day. The PC based security system came into the picture for resolving these incidents. The system recorded clearly who, where, when, what, and how a violation of good faith was performed in common areas. A gentle reminder to the violator would assure no recurrence of violation in the future.

Technically, this open-air residential campus has to be treated differently to a high rise building in terms of the design of the security system. Cabling on a widely open ground can be expensive and hard to maintain. The solution is to deploy intercampus point-to-point wireless between security devices. For vehicle access control at the gate, tuning of the UHF RFID system is very situational and time consuming. If a car does not park properly, it can cause the gate to stay opened.

The design of a good security system must meet 3 criteria. The 1st criterion is that the client must spend time with the system designer to explain emerging problems as each comes along over time and not just for the initial installation. The 2nd criterion is that the designer must have wide technical knowledge for offering cost effective solutions in a very short time. The 3rd criterion is that the system must be flexible and expandable over time without writing off previous client investments (this is where the PC comes in).

The article is not intended to promote PC as almighty. It is intended to ask the question why many security systems do not use PC. Do we know why? Ignorance of how much a PC can do? PC is too technical to handle? PC is too expensive? It is true that Compucon has been a general-purpose PC maker and specialist for 30
years. The potential of turning a PC into application-specific was only discovered in recent years. The learning curve has been rewarding. This case study shares the experience with peers especially whoever may like to go into joint ventures with Compucon.