Collection: Detec Next Station Inspector

Why use Detec Next Station Inspector?

  • The system can be scaled according to needs with the number of thermal cameras, PTZ cameras and conventional IP cameras that are necessary
  • Several local systems on different sites can be connected to a joint security centre
  • The system gives temperature observation, perimeter security and fire notification in one singular system
  • Very early warning through images giving more information than other alarm types – assessment on necessity of turn-out is more substantiated

Detec Next Station Inspector

Challenges with Power Plants and Power Stations

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In recent years, security measures at power plants and distribution networks for power has been studied in detail to prevent accidents and terror attacks. An accident at a power plant or in other parts of the power distribution network will potentially have a serious impact such as loss of life, or that large parts of the community will be without electricity. This will lead to vulnerability in the society’s daily operation and in emergency services. Being a critical part of the society’s wealth and welfare, this kind of infrastructure is considered a valued target for terror strikes.

 

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The infrastructure consists of different types of power plants generating energy as well as power stations, transformers, high voltage transmission masts, power lines and electrical substations distributing energy.  Additionally, there are control and operational stations monitoring a robust and secure energy supply. This network of units (from now on referred to as power stations) in need of security measures are geographically spread, often on remote locations with otherwise poorly built infrastructure. This complicates security measures such as fire prevention, perimeter security against intruders (terrorist attacks, theft of materials), as well as providing safety for workers doing maintenance etc. 

Detec Power Station Inspector – Three Tools in one Scalable System 

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A good contribution to all of these challenges will be a security system that can be placed geographically spread and connected to one or more security centers. On each location you will achieve three things with one single Detec Power Station Inspector system;

  • You will be able to measure temperatures at the site, giving warnings on critical temperature changes on vital parts of the power station,
  • You will be able to secure the areas perimeter against intruders,
  • And you will be able to give an alarm on early indications of a potential fire by high temperatures even before the fire itself starts, giving security guards and firemen the possibility to react very rapidly and minimize the extent of damage.


System Description

Temperature Observation

Detec Power Station Inspector is built around the use of thermal radiometric cameras to localize heat development or cooling, more specifically the radiometric thermal cameras. The cameras can point towards both the power station’s perimeter and vital parts of the site where great temperature changes should not occur. Operators will be able to see live transmission of images from the camera and assess whether temperatures are normal. It is possible to set an upper and lower limit for temperature before recording of events should occur. The recordings will then pop up in the operators user interface as an event/alarm.

Perimeter Security

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The radiometric thermal cameras are also recommended to be set up for covering the area’s perimeter. This is recommended because thermal cameras give a very powerful segmentation of persons, animals or cars as such objects usually have another temperature than the surroundings. A thermal camera will be able to segment such objects even under difficult weather conditions such as fog, snow, rain or headlights pointing towards the camera. When an object is detected through advanced video analysis of the images from thermal cameras, a notification is sent to the Detec Next PRO video analysis server. The server again notifies a controllable Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera. This camera covers the same area as one or more thermal cameras and will be commanded to go to a predefined region looking at the direction where an object has been detected. In that way, an operator can verify whether the event is a real threat to security or not through clear images of the scene and object, and potentially notify an alarm – all through the user interface of Detec Next software.  

The reason for using both a thermal camera and a PTZ-camera is that images from a thermal camera will be visually grey and only draw contours of the power station and the surroundings based on different temperatures from different surfaces.

To make the system more economical, conventional IP cameras can replace one or more thermal radiometric cameras. These are set up to detect objects violating the perimeter detection lines set up on the Detec Next server, but these kind of cameras are more sensitive to weather conditions and darkness, and will give more false notifications. On the other hand, such cameras may be more valuable as they give the possibility of recognizing persons and car number plates (e.g. on the road in to the power station).

Fire Notification

The principals for fire notification will be similar to the preceding two, but it will not be motion that trigger events and commands in the system. Instead it will be when the temperature measurement from the radimetric thermal camera exceeds a user-defined limit of degrees in Celsius for fire notification that trigger an alarm.  
Places in the image from the thermal camera where an alarm has trigged will rapidly be identified with sharp pink colour. The PTZ camera will immediately zoom in on areas if the pink colour appears, and an operator will quickly identify where the heat development is taking place. The PTZ cameras are equipped with a very powerful zoom function giving the operator very good details visually even on large distances. In that way an operator will be able to verify whether it is a real potential fire or not much better and faster, and alternatively assess whether a turn-out is necessary.

The Detec Next software and server ensures that data from the thermal camera is being analyzed and that alarms are interpreted correctly. Detec AS have long experience in working with software based video analysis, and have developed a tool that handles image information in an intuitive yet advanced way. Instructions on alarm handling along with images of the event can be sent to multiple receivers through the Detec software via secured networks.