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Perimeter security - the future is now

What images do you have when mentioning perimeter security? Something about fences, grandmothers “God's dandelion” with berdans, a bunch of cameras and spotlights? Alarm? Yes, something similar was a very long time ago.

In connection with recent events, the approach to monitoring the protection of buildings, sections of the state border, water areas and extended open spaces will change dramatically.

In this post I want to talk about the problems of existing classical systems, and about what changes are happening now in the field of security systems. What is a thing of the past and what is already used in modern security systems.

How was it before?


I was born in a closed city, and since childhood I got used to access control, concrete fences, soldiers and barbed wire. Now I can hardly imagine what titanic efforts it was worth providing reliable protection of the perimeter of the whole city.



Preparation of the territory for the installation of concrete fencing is the work of draining swamps, tons of land and forest. And you also need to install perimeter sensors (detectors), cameras, lighting. A huge group of operations should support all this: equipment needs updating, seasonal adjustment and repair.

Many security detectors began to be developed in the USSR back in the 70s of the last century in my and several other cities. Since that time, the principle of their “broken-rang” operation has not changed much, and the reliability and noise immunity has increased. Element base and production technology were also improved.

In fact, both then and now, the detector only generates an alarm when an intruder is detected in a protected area.

Of course, you can add lattices, cameras, searchlights to this, put concrete fences and create several lines of protection.

But all this only makes the security complex more expensive and does not eliminate the main drawback of the "classical" systems. The time of “interaction” of an experienced intruder with a foreign country is only a few seconds. Before and after the invasion, we do not know anything about his actions.

This means that you may not have time to take the necessary measures before crossing the perimeter of the object and get a big headache after the invasion.

What could be an ideal security system?


For example, this:

  1. Detect the intruder before crossing the border of the protected area. At a distance of, say, 20-50 meters from the fence. After that, the system should monitor the trajectory of the intruder before and after the invasion. The intruder trajectory and video monitoring frames are displayed on security service monitors.
  2. Moreover, the number of surveillance cameras should be minimal so as not to increase the cost of the security complex and not to overload the eyes and brains of security personnel.

Now similar functions are possessed by radar protection systems (radar). They detect moving objects, identify the intruder, determine the location (range and azimuth) of the intruder, his speed, direction of movement and other parameters. Based on these data, you can build a trajectory on the plan of the object. This allows predicting the further movement of the intruder to important objects within the protected area.


An example of displaying information from a radar security complex on a security service monitor.

Such a radar system operates within the field of view from tens of degrees to 360 degrees in azimuth. Camcorders complement visualization. Using radar data, the rotary platform of the cameras provides visual support for the intruder.

To completely cover the territory of an object with an extended perimeter (from 5 to 15 km), only a few radars with a viewing angle of up to 90 degrees may be enough. In this case, the locator that detected the intruder first, monitors it and analyzes the parameters of its movement until the intruder falls into the field of view of another locator and another camera.

As a result, the facility is constantly under the control of the security service operator.
This concept of building a security system is informative, quite effective and ergonomic.

Here is an example of the real work of such a system:


Ready to continue publishing. For example, about anti-UAV and drones and modern composite fencing systems (an alternative to reinforced concrete fencing).

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