New trends for Improving Security Against Intruders

A recent trend in anti-intrusion systems is the popularisation of applications for managing systems from smartphones. “This trend began a few years ago with some manufacturers, and today it’s widespread, and virtually all brands provide this functionality,” says Teo Fúnez, Director of Product and Technology Casmar Electronics.

On the other hand, Carlos Araujo, Intrusion Product Manager at IBD Global, says that another of the most significant changes we’re seeing in the market is how manufacturers are merging intrusion systems with video surveillance.

Paradigm Shift

Teo Fúnez of Casmar Electronics says that the emergence of mobile applications has been a paradigm shift. “Intrusion systems in the past were usually operated from LED or LCD touchscreens fixed to the walls of the premises, and their functionality was quite limited. Now, systems can also be operated from a mobile phone, with all the benefits that brings.”

Now, “although it depends on each manufacturer, we can enable as many smartphones as we need for family members or company employees, manage intrusion systems from anywhere in the world, view the facility’s cameras to avoid false alarms, authorise or de-authorise system users, interact with building automation equipment, view the event log, who did what and when, and expand functionalities as the manufacturer develops them.”

In detection systems, Fúnez highlights another major trend: the use of LiDAR laser technology for protecting perimeters or intermediate areas, such as gardens or façades (protecting their doors and windows) or roofs (controlling their openings and skylights), or for protecting works of art in museums, to name just a few applications. “These systems use an invisible laser, so we can adjust the desired detection area and identify in what part of that space an intrusion is occurring.”

Merging with Video

The security field is becoming more and more professional, and end-users are much more demanding. So, companies in the sector need to offer more comprehensive, integrated and reliable systems.

Carlos Araujo is Intrusion Product Manager at IBD Global. He says that one of the most significant changes in the market now is how manufacturers are merging intrusion systems and video surveillance. ”Merging systems like this means that when a detector raises a theft alarm from, we don’t have to be satisfied with simply sending it to the central receiving station or watching a live video feed from a camera that isn’t giving us any helpful information. By merging these technologies, we can boost the quality when protecting an installation.”

One of the technologies used in more and more devices is video analytics. “This functionality can do a comprehensive analysis of any video feed from a CCTV camera.” Araujo says that “one of the manufacturers that’s shifting towards this revolutionary technology more strongly is Dahua. They’ve been doing the development work for years, but now they’ve been able to programme their equipment to select, for example, which areas should have restricted people flows, select the flow direction, or adapt image analysis to suit the object size. This configurable analysis avoids false alarms by selecting which situations should generate an intrusion signal.”