30 September 2020
Detecting unwanted garden intruders to protect your home
To protect our home and belongings, being able to detect intruders as soon as possible is crucial. Accessing a property through the back garden or patio, is a method commonly used by burglars and intruders to help ensure they remain out of sight from passers-by and residents.
While fences and walls surrounding the property represent a physical barrier, they are usually not enough to protect against intrusion. Adding outdoor intrusion detection systems, however, provides and accurate and reliable way to detect any trespassers.
Our outdoor sensors can work with any alarm system panels or CCTV solutions, being self-monitored or monitored by security professionals. They can alert timely of an intrusion, triggering lights and cameras for visual verification, launching an audio warning and notifying the homeowner, security staff or the police, reducing considerably the risk of a break in.
OPTEX Infrared beams provide point-to-point detection triggering the alarm in the event of an intruder jumping over the fence or wall. Panoramic sensors, our WXI and WXS series enable 180-degree detection field and are perfectly suited for open garden spaces, providing independent configuration for left and right sides, for instance to avoid vegetation or other obstacles in the garden.
For along the sides of the house and its corners, 90-degree VXI Series PIRs, can provide customised detection and can now be upgraded with a camera module so the owner can instantly verify using the live view and recorded video.
High mount sensors in a private garden (installed frequently between 2.2 and 2.7m height) can be suited due to the layout of the space to be protected or for aesthetics since the sensor is out of sight. Something to keep in mind when installing a high mount sensor is that the linear detection distance to the target is not lost while maintaining a wide area, for instance protecting beyond obstacles such as garden furniture.
OPTEX sensors keep your garden and its belongings safe from burglars and unwanted intruders.
OPTEX intrusion detection sensors are available in wired and wireless models providing more versatility as they can be installed wherever they are needed and help to bring down the cost of installation. They can be added to existing or new intrusion alarm or CCTV systems.
National Home Security Month in the UK
In October, The National Home Security Month campaign is running. For one month, the focus is on protecting homes, belongings and crucially people, owners or tenants. Facts, advice and checklists will be shared throughout October and while it is a British website, it will surely resonate with security professionals throughout the world. OPTEX is supporting this initiative and will share the content.
For more information visit www.homesecuritymonth.com
When to think Fibre optic?
Fibre optic Perimeter Intrusion Detection Systems (PIDS) are usually associated with high security fence protection and not always considered for smaller commercial or residential applications. While it is true that the fibre optic sensors are perfectly suited for large perimeters, usually located in harsh environments, it is important not to pigeonhole this technology only for those applications.
Our Fiber Sensys sensor range offers a range of products that would suit both a VIP residence and commercial application. It’s important to consider both the site and customer’s requirements.
What does fibre optic sensors detect?
Optical fibre conducts light using principles of reflection and refraction. An Alarm Processing Unit (APU) will send a laser pulse over the fibre optics cable and analyse the change in the interference pattern along the cable.
This principle allows to detect if anyone is unsettling the fence or wall where the cable is installed. Our algorithms give the ability to determine what kind of disturbance is happening: cutting through the fence would create one spectrum, while climbing or crawling under it would create a different spectrum. Drilling through a wall will in its turn create a different light pattern.
What disturbances can be tuned out?
The configuration software provided with the APU features a number of parameters enabling the ability to tune out any noise that could cause false alarms such as vibrations caused by wind, nearby traffic or small animals, hence making the system extremely reliable. Depending on the product series, the number of calibration parameters is six for our entry level solution and 30+ for the others.
What environments can it be implemented in?
The Fiber Sensys sensors provide immunity from lightning, EMI/RFI, and it is intrinsically safe for use in hazardous areas. They are designed to operate in extreme temperatures as well as in dusty or harsh environments
Fence applications
In most applications, fibre optic cable sensors are mounted on a fence. The cable sensor can be implemented in a conduit attached to chain-link, weld mesh, wrought-iron or other fence types using stainless steel wire ties. Implementation in conduit is the recommended approach if extra protection of the fibre optic cable is required from weather or to resist potential damage from wild animals. One of the key benefits of implementing our fibre optic sensors is that only the APU needs to be powered. Long perimeters can therefore be protected without the requirement to have access to the main power. In addition, a number of our APUs can be located remotely, up to 20km away from the fence, reducing even more the quantity of hardware on the field.
Although the alarm processors offer numerous user configurable parameters, fence quality plays a major role in the level of security. Before a fibre optic installation is initiated, a full physical site evaluation should be conducted, identifying and correcting any flaws in the fence. Some commonly overlooked flaws include trees standing near the fence line or large gaps along the length of the fence.
Wall Applications
OPTEX fibre optic intrusion sensors are also designed to be implemented on walls. This could be on perimeter walls or more commonly on the building itself. This would be used to detect intruders drilling holes to access inside buildings. Although it seems a ‘rough’ way to break it, it happens on a regular basis with cash machines being pull out of walls using diggers, or criminals drilling through warehouses and high-risk shops such as jewelry or armoury shops to access valuable goods or restricted merchandise.
The fibre optic cable will be implemented inside a galvanised conduit, which will be attached to the wall or embedded in the wall. The service life for the fibre cable is expected to be at least 20 years, which makes it long-lasting solution.
Alarm zones
Our APU series ranges from one to 25 zones, giving a lot of flexibility, depending on the total length of the perimeter and the number of alarm zones to be created. When working in conjunction with fixed cameras, it is common to create zones from 50 up to 100m with respectively one camera or two cameras at each end. This enables the security staff to visualize what is happening in the intrusion zone. Alarm zones can be set for much larger areas such as a couple of kilometers each if best suited to the site requirements.
Our Fiber Sensys fibre optic range (link to series) is a reliable, versatile and cost-effective intrusion detection solution. It can be implemented on fences and walls. Some of our series will be tailored for protecting critical infrastructure but other series are perfectly suited for residential and commercial applications. The fibre optic cable sensors can be integrated with Video Management Systems (VMS) for camera control of any alarms triggered by the sensor, or PSIM including alarm systems, access control and building management systems. The integration as part of the wider security system helps further improve the reliability and performance of the security system and ensures the deployment of multi-layered protection from the outer perimeter to the building itself.
Adding a wireless transmitter to our battery-powered sensors
Our battery-powered sensors can work with wireless transmitters from any manufacturer and most transmitters can fit within the housing of the sensors. To be on the safe side it is best to check the dimensions indicated on our product datasheets or instruction manuals.
Some wireless panel manufacturers such as Texecom Ricochet®, Ksenia, SAET and IDS, have developed specific transmitters with a deeper integration with our sensors. For Ricochet please consult the February 2020 tech tip. For other manufacturers, please contact us.. In this month’s tech-tip, we are focussing on any ‘universal’ wireless transmitters.
Which OPTEX intrusion sensors?
All OPTEX branded outdoor battery-operated PIRs, Dual- technology and Active Infrared beams as listed here
Our long range REDWALL SIP Series are not covered in this tech-tip.
One or two channel wireless transmitter?
The number of channels depends on the type of application. For ‘chime’ notification, in which the detection of person or vehicle will be indicated through a sound or visual warning but is not used for security application, one channel transmitter can be used. For security applications, a two-channel transmitter should be used to monitor the tamper.
What to consider before installing a wireless outdoor intrusion system?
1. Wireless survey
Before implementing an external wireless intrusion detection system, it is important to do a wireless survey on site. In busy environments, with a lot of buildings and metallic objects, the wireless range may be affected. If the signal strength is not sufficient, it is recommended to use a wireless repeater. The survey should be done using a wireless survey kit.
2. Pre-site programming
Before going onto the field, it is best practice to program the wireless transmitter into the wireless receiver. By doing so, installers can check that:
- Both devices, transmitter and receiver work properly
- The alarm and tamper signal are transmitted correctly
If the alarm/ tamper transmission has been previously tested and doesn’t function on the field, installers will know it is linked to the environment and not a faulty device or an issue with the programming.
Connecting the wireless transmitter and sharing power
- For PIRs/ dual tech sensors
Our PIRs and dual-tech can be powered from the transmitters, two wiring looms are provided: one is a two-cable wiring loom and the other, a four-cable wiring loom. The two-cable wiring loom is for the transmission of the tamper. The four-cable wiring loom is for the power and alarm transmission. The red and black cables have spade connectors, which are placed between the battery and transmitter contacts, to power the device. The white and yellow cable are used for the transmission of alarms.
- For the wireless active infrared beams
It is a different scenario for the active infrared beams, the wireless transmitter would not provide enough power to power both the wireless transmitter and the IR sensors. However, the wireless transmitter can be powered from the wireless beam when using the Battery Common Unit accessory. Please refer to our previous tech tip on how to use the accessory
It is good practice to connect a wireless transmitter in both the transmitting beam and the receiving beams. Having two wireless transmitters allows the ability to monitor the tamper and low battery of both IR Transmitting beam and receiving beams and the environmental disqualification (DQ) of the receiving beam when this feature is available.
Our beams series come with different wiring options, so please refer to the manual for each of them
- AX- series (twin beams): no wiring looms are provided
- SL-TNR series (twin, hybrid beams): two wiring looms are provided for alarm and tamper
- SL-QFR/QNR series (Quad beams): three wiring looms are provided for alarm, tamper and environmental disqualification (DQ)
Make sure the transmitter is secured inside the beam housing using the Velcro provided with the wireless transmitter.
Walk test
The last part of the implementation is to carry out a walk test and check the signal strength at the wireless receiver.