Securing Perimeters in Airport


Singapore Changi Airport, rated the World’s Best Airport for the seventh consecutive year since 2013, is one of the world’s busiest airports for international passenger and cargo traffic. With globalisation, civil airports have become an interconnection hub of countries and airports have increased interest and awareness in security systems to combat criminals and terrorists. In 2010, Changi Airport initiated the search for an effective Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS) that could meet critical requirements for an airport’s perimeter security.

Robust and Reliable Perimeter Protection Needed

Following the growth of an airport, an addition of a runway, fence lines are reconfigured or expanded. Typical close-loop perimeter security systems have limited flexibility and ability to adapt to post-deployment changes, leading to disruptions to the airport’s perimeter security. Further, most available systems in the market do not adequately detect certain common types of intrusions and tamper attempts.

As the fence will be placed in an outdoor setting with environmental and aircraft effects, the system to be implemented must maintain a low nuisance alarm rate while still ensuring high detection probability.

Fortifying State-of-the-art Technology

The PIDS uses advanced fibre-based sensors embedded in the fibre optic cables, these highly sensitive devices are able to detect minute mechanical changes in the fence, as small as few millimetres of fence deflection. An intelligent, adaptive signal-processing algorithm eliminates false and nuisance alarms and provides pinpoint accuracy for minimal response time. The open-loop architecture provides the reliability, scalability, and flexibility required for cost-effective, future-proof perimeter security.

To date, the 22 km of fences that surround Changi Airport have been secured by the PIDS.

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