Comprehensive security for a shopping mall

by Fabia Fuzzeti*

Opened in 1966, the Iguatemi São Paulo shopping center was the first of its kind in Latin America. It has a built area of 129,747 m² divided into three floors that house 330 shops, eight movie theaters and a food court with 44 restaurants and fast food establishments.

The mall wanted to acquire a centralized security system that would allow to control, from the monitoring room, the alarms of all the warehouses, the entrance and exit doors, emergency, and the operation of the escalators. To do this, the company FOR developed a large system, which monitors about 800 points, between intrusion and panic alarms in stores, and intrusion for entry, exit and emergency doors and escalators.

Design challenges and solutions
One of the limitations that were presented was that the system had to have wireless communication for the stores, because the warehouses change design very frequently, which made it impossible to pass cables, in addition to the problems associated with aesthetics: (since the facades were made of glass, cables could not be adapted to the door sensors). Corrective maintenance and design changes also had to be quick so as not to disrupt commercial activities. For this reason, For had to develop a system based on wireless technology. In addition, as the atmosphere of the mall was quite noisy and had an internal cellular network, the system that was going to be used had to be quite robust, and also economical in terms of battery consumption.

To solve it, For partnered with an American company that supplied the wireless receivers and sensors. The radio system operates on dispersed spectrum technology, where each packet of information is sent simultaneously by different frequencies; this gives solidity to the system against interference produced by other radio emissions, such as the cellular system, among others. From an O&M contract with this company, a more robust protocol for electronic security was developed, whose purpose was communication between radio receivers and the central station.

The system has intelligent sensors, which only send a strong signal when an intrusion event occurs; otherwise, they communicate sporadically with low power to alert the receiver that they are working properly. Sensor batteries last five years on average.

The radio mechanism in general works from cells, each with variable coverage between 50 and 300 meters depending on the propagation conditions of the environment. In the mall there are about 22 cells, each one has the capacity to communicate with 100 wireless sensors, including aperture, infrared, fire, panic and surveillance rounds sensors.

The wireless cellular network is interconnected via a serial port to the central monitoring station via an IEE485 bus; this bus can contain around 3,000 cells, which allows it to be used in large projects. The maximum distance between a cell and the plant (without the use of repeaters), can reach 1,000 meters. In the monitoring center, based on a PC and under the Windows operating system, a fully graphic multimedia application software was developed, which allows the total monitoring of the intrusion system.

Bringing technology to the real world
One of the goals when developing a solution was that it should be able to be operated by anyone without computer skills. The operator basically uses the mouse to operate the system, without the need for other commands or using the keyboard. The graphical display and commands are intuitive and easy to understand. The application has an editing module, which allows the graphic insertion of the ground floors of all the monitored premises. Each monitored location is related to a graphic object (in any format) and the alarm sensors are registered in the system and associated with their respective graphic objects. The system allows the configuration of a specific alarm for each sensor, which in case of alarm allows to generate textual reports on the screen, sound messages for the operator and a command of remote actuators for the CCTV system, among others.

There is a color coding associated with each graphic object, to show if the alarm of a local is on or off, or if there is an alarm event. When an alarm is triggered, the object associated with the sensor changes color. From the visualization of the colors in the environment, as a whole, the operator knows which premises have the alarm activated, deactivated, which local ones have it detonated. The system gives priority to alarm information by degree of importance and order of arrival. It provides various reports, prepared according to the specific needs of a shopping center.

In addition to monitoring the premises and allowing them to act, the system monitors the sensors – which are working properly, their degrees of signal transmission and the status of the batteries. In case a sensor is inactive, the operator receives a warning to take the measures of sending a technician to the premises, who will verify what has happened.

The system even encompasses the real-time round function to monitor the center's internal guards. It allows to record the routes (the sequences between round points) that must be carried out by the different guards throughout the day inside the place. Wireless sensors are installed at the various round points, and the moment the round passes a special pen, the system sends the information to the central. There is a great tolerance of schedule for each surveillance point that the watchman must obey; if it does not pass through the place or does so outside the schedule, the central receives the information in real time.

In addition to the wireless system from receivers, there are wired modules of 16 zones that can be used for both property alarm and fire smoke sensors, which allows to project a hybrid system.

Implementation difficulties
In a shopping center of the Iguatemi porte, quite complex for being the oldest and having gone through several reforms and extensions with various concepts of property infrastructure (old and modern). The biggest work was the passage of the network cable. The place did not have a technical gallery, so everything had to be done in the mezzanines and outside the hours of service. The work lasted about two weeks. The installation of the sensors in the premises, since it did not involve wiring, was carried out by a single technician, who installed them at the rate of 30 warehouses per day.

Due to its flexibility, this system has been used in shopping centers, perimeter systems in large companies and property alarm systems.

* Fabia Fuzetti is the correspondent for SECURITY SALES in Brazil.