Navtech Radar: protect the Museum of Islamic Art on seaside

Navtech Radar: protect the Museum of Islamic Art on seaside. Reaching a balance in protecting the valuable artefacts and making the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar an open, friendly, and wonderful visual experience, to the visitors and scholars who use it, has been an interesting challenge for the project planners. The result is that they have chosen to implement one of the world’s most sophisticated state of the art surveillance and security technology systems. Approaching the new iconic building of the Museum from the seaside, you could therefore easily be forgiven for overlooking the four small radar pods on the wall of the building. Mounted approximately 3 m above low tide water level, the pods blends so well into the architecture and colour scheme of the building, that only the trained eye instantly spots them.

The architecture has been inspired by Islamic motifs, and not only is the Museum of Islamic Art one of the most important museums in Qatar, it is also one of the most iconic and beautiful buildings in the Middle East. Designed by worldfamous architect Leoh Ming Pei, the Chinese-American architect, who also designed the (controversial glass) pyramid in the Louvre in Paris, the museum, which opened last year, is aimed as a major source of information on Islamic antiquities.

From the seafront the five floor building seems to raise straight out of the water. Welcoming visitors with a reception hall, shops and restaurants on the first floor, the second, third and fourth floors include permanent exhibition halls with the general administration located on the 5th floor. The 45,000 m2 building complex is situated on the southern part of Doha‘s seafront (Corniche) on an artificial island about 60 m off the coast of Doha. A crescent cape has been added to the Island to act as a northward tidal barrier and to block the eastward industrial buildings from the view.

Exploiting nature‘s organic patterns, combined with the minute man-made designs of this artificial island, has rendered the location an ideal one and visible from all directions. Overlooking Doha‘s lagoon from the west it even has its own marina providing mooring for guests. At night the entire complex is lit with flood lights 20 m high which makes it visible from quite a long distance across the lagoon.

Surveillance for Seaside

Approach But how do you protect the museum and its valuable collections from intruders approaching from the seaside? Fencing is clearly out of the question and you need to take into account that the lagoon is also used for recreational purposes with lots of swimmers, surfers and jet skiers enjoying the bay. The security design consultant turned to Navtech Radar – a company specializing in development and manufacturing of highly effective millimetre wave (MMW) radar sensor solutions for outdoor applications within security and surveillance.

Senior Security Consultant Kevin Gausden from Arup Security Consulting was previously employed by Quadrant Security Group during 2004/5 to work on the specifications for the project and he explains the design of the RADAR (RAdio Detecting And Ranging) System solution in more detail: “During the design phase of the Museum of Islamic Art, many aspects had to be considered. The Museum was constructed on reclaimed land and it was detailed that sea water would surround the entire museum. This prevented any form of physical barrier such as fences etc. Proposals such as floating pontoons and boons were considered but were rejected by the Architects and the Government as they would not be in keeping with the design. The design process considered Laser Detectors mounted at high level on the exterior walls, but as the sea was tidal the use of this type of technology would be problematic with false alarms”.

Quadrant Security Group was approached by Navtech and a demonstration of the Radar was set up in the car park at the Watford HQ. The demonstration was undertaken utilizing one PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) camera and one radar unit, and the demonstration was a complete success. However, the project needed four radar units and fourteen external PTZ cameras all to work together as one system so as to provide complete 360 degree detection and CCTV coverage. This was discussed with Dr Stephen Clark and he agreed to review the development of the units to the specific project requirements. This development was carried out over several months and the development was extremely successful.

The system can track a Jet-Ski radar to radar and camera to camera around the total perimeter of the museum without loss of contact with the object being tracked. The original radar housing design was not architecturally pleasing, so although the unit provided the right solution this aspect lead to further discussions with Navtech on the redesigning of the housing for the radar. Dr Stephen Clark and his team produced multiple design drawings until an agreed design was accepted by the project architects which is the housing that is used today by Navtech.

So, not only did Navtech develop their product to meet the technical requirements but they redesigned the housing to meet with all the architect’s aesthetical requirements and assisted with making this project a success. Although the radar requires its own front-end control computer and could not be operated by the Synergy Pro Computer the alarms from the Navtech system were integrated using High Level integration and were displayed and controlled by the Synergy Pro System.

Navtech provided a standard RGB Video Output and this was connected to the Synectics Video Matrix and DVR which allowed the radar tracking images not only to be displayed on the video wall but also recorded on the DVR. Radar Systems are limited by line of sight; however the Radar system was the only solution that was a viable option on this project.

Tracking Intruders in Zones

Dr. Stephen Clark of Navtech picks up the story. “The 4 radars each cover different detection zones and between them they control 14 CCTV cameras. If a single intruder is detected in a zone the radar will switch the nearest CCTV camera to follow that track. Should a boat or other intruder be detected in the overlapping area between 2 zones, both cameras will be directed to follow.

If many intruders are detected in a single zone, the system has been configured to track them all, but direct the camera to follow the closest track to the museum. The rationale is that the closest track is probably posing the greatest threat. Each radar processor will generate ‘tracks’ for the objects that are moving in its field of view.”

Track information is available over the 3rd party interface to the Security Management System and includes track range, speed and heading. Since the radar are on the edge of the building, the track range and bearing can also be used to find the distance to the building itself. This is helpful when the control room operator decides what response to raise.

It is further possible to filter the tracks when raising alarms to the operator. This is done in order to minimize false alarms. Effectively the system ‘learns’ to distinguish between tracks heading towards the museum and tracks which are not. As for intercepting approaching intruders, we mentioned that the museum complex also includes a marina which is located to the north side of the building, primarily intended for VIP use. However, the docking area is also used for changeover of the personnel in the 2 rescue boats, which are constantly at sea during the Museums opening hours, so they can quickly be directed to the position of an intruder as flagged up in the control room.

General Data about the Museum:
Total built-up area: 45 000 m²
Max height: 60 m2
Total Exhibition Area: 3 000 m²
Temporary Galleries: 870 m²
Study Galleries: 400 m²
Library: 820 m²
Conservation & Study: 400 m²
Collection Stores: 1 800 m²
Auditorium: (167 seats) 230 m²
Restaurant: 560 m²
Shop: 300 m²
Marina: 4 boats

Contact:

Navtech Radar Ltd.,
Oxfordshire, UK
Tel.: +44 1235 832419
Fax: +44 1235 821675
www.navtechradar.com