100-Camera Wireless Video Surveillance System Implemented at Long Beach Airport

July 28, 2005
BroadWare technologies designs video networking system where spaces between video devices is up to 6,000 feet

CUPERTINO, CA -- BroadWare Technologies, Inc., the leader in distributed video surveillance, has been selected to implement a sophisticated wireless video surveillance platform at Long Beach Airport (LGB) in southern Los Angeles County, an important alternate to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) that hosts major airlines such as Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, America West Airlines and JetBlue Airways. Based on the industry-leading BroadWare Media Patform, the new wireless surveillance system will enable three separate Long Beach Airport security operations centers to simultaneously monitor distant sites, including secured airport areas, public parking lots and roadway tunnels.

The BroadWare Media Patform, which provides a single wireless solution for viewing, storing and managing real-time video from more than 100 cameras, becomes one of the very first wireless surveillance systems to be installed at any airport in the USA. This cost-effective, easy-to-use, integrated security platform provides Long Beach Airport with the necessary technology to respond more effectively and recover more rapidly from security threats and events.

"In some cases, the distance between video input and output devices is as much as 6,000 feet, and this is far too great a distance to install conduit lines," said Mike Bolduc, Senior Project Manager at Glover and Associates, an independent security consulting company that designed the specifications for the Long Beach Airport security system. "A digital, wireless solution such as BroadWare's was the only cost-effective way to tie together access control and video surveillance."

BroadWare's unique wireless digital video surveillance platform is a vital component in a $3 million contract awarded to ARINC Incorporated, the world leader in transportation communications and systems engineering. The contract specifies a single security network that combines perimeter access, fire and intrusion alarms and surveillance video. BroadWare and ARINC will integrate the BroadWare Media Platform to deliver live and archived distributed video surveillance with ARINC's security management solution, the AIM(r) (Advanced Information Management) System for Airports.

Using BroadWare's wireless infrastructure, airport personnel at three locations in Long Beach (the Command and Control Center, the Security Operations Center and the Security and Safety Office) will be able to monitor information from ARINC's AIM access control system while viewing live video feeds at the same time from the same PC. The ARINC project, started in May 2005, is scheduled to be completed during 4Q 2005.

"The synergy between BroadWare's video technology platform and ARINC's AIM system brings tremendous value to Long Beach Airport," said Peter McDonald, Senior Director of Business Development for BroadWare. "For example, when AIM detects an access control problem, it sets off an alarm and immediately searches to find the camera closest to the potential threat so that airport personnel have instantaneous visual information available to them."

The BroadWare / ARINC installation includes more than 100 cameras within secured areas of the airport where they help keep travelers who have passed through security checkpoints inside "sterile" and "SIDA" (secure identification display areas) locations. Additional cameras are situated at remote parking lots, on gates around the perimeter of the airport and in two public tunnels leading to the airport and located beneath vulnerable, active taxi ways. These cameras track anomalous activities such as someone exiting through a secure entrance, passengers breaking out of line as they board a plane or pedestrians walking within the tunnels.

BroadWare's wireless platform uses a "virtual switch" to replace the analog matrix switch boxes commonly used in traditional wired networks. Like matrix switches, a virtual switch routes signals from a range of input sources to a variety of output devices, creating a "matrix" pattern of interconnection possibilities.

ARINC's AIM System for Airports is an enhanced version of the company's AIM security technology currently used at more than a third of the nation's nuclear power plants. The central AIM system provides nine advanced security capabilities including access control, intrusion detection, emergency telephone and notification systems, alarm and event annunciation, expanded video surveillance, digital video storage, intelligent video analytics, improved gate control and enhanced personnel badging.

"We are delivering to the Long Beach Airport today's most advanced airport security capabilities and a central management system that exceeds all specifications and requirements," said Mike Picco, ARINC Vice President, Airport Systems Division. "The integrated deployment of AIM for Airports with BroadWare's wireless video surveillance platform will become a technology model for the entire airport industry."