Situational awareness involves understanding a given circumstance, collecting relevant information, analyzing it, and making informed decisions to address any potential risks.
When applying this to perimeter security, it is common practice to see designs that fortify the perimeter; but once that alarm happens, it is uncommon to have a system that provides the continuous coverage and relevant information operators need to make an informed decision as the potential threat progress. This is where FLIR Nexus comes in, the company says.
Nexus is a proprietary communication protocol that helps bridge the gap between devices and systems, ensuring a more complete understanding of the environment outside and inside a security perimeter.
RELATED: How to Choose Security Camera and Window Film Vendors
Creating a detection system’s tracking layer and providing complete situational awareness requires a system integrator to coordinate the communication between many different technologies. Without an overarching communication system, this type of coordination can be complicated, says FLIR, requiring the integrator to set up a series of rules to first identify the target, classify it as a threat, locate the physical location, and then track the target as it moves. It’s unlikely this potential threat would stay in the field of view of a single sensor, so the integrator would further have to coordinate communications between different sensors to maintain continuity as the target moves.
Often, to execute this level of situational awareness, a customer would need some sort of advanced software that collects the geodata being presented by a variety of different sensors and then coordinate proper handoffs as the target moves.
Image Courtesy of FLIR
FLIR Nexus provides customers with the situational awareness needed for exterior spaces by allowing edge devices to communicate in a server/client format without the need of software or server in the middle. There is no need for additional software or servers, reducing the cost of ownership when compared to similar solutions in the market, according to the company.
RELATED: Secured School Entry Vestibules: Reducing Weak Points and Increasing Sightlines
When combined with FLIR’s camera analytics for detection, this total security system can identify, locate, and track targets all at the edge. As a potential threat moves through the scene, Nexus-enabled devices communicate the geodata to other Nexus devices and provide seamless handoffs for continuous tracking. This allows an operator to have the relevant information needed to make informed decisions on what is happening, thus providing complete situational awareness. Since all FLIR devices have ONVIF drivers, all of the video information can be recorded to any VMS.
See the FLIR Nexus Bundle and learn how it can improve perimeter security.
