Airport Security Solution

Mike Newton, Chairman

AD Holdings PLC; The Mews, Arley Road, Appleton Thorn, Cheshire, WA4 4RR, UK

Introduction Airport security has been subject to criticism for some time, however it has been considered prohibitively expensive and onerous to make significant advances. This document is intended to demonstrate how network appliance video servers can provide dramatic improvements over a short implementation time scale at an acceptable cost basis.

1. Key areas of concern 1.1 Aircraft Access It is a historical fact of life that airliners do not have locks on the doors. It has always been assumed that security was sufficiently adequate that no one would attempt to access or steal a commercial airliner. This does however mean that unnattended aircraft can be totally vulnerable. In addition there are many times when an aircraft will be on a theoretically secure air unattended bridge, when the doors will be open. There are many staff legitimately accessing the aircraft over a period of time, making it impractical to keep the aircraft fully secured. It has however become an almost common occurrence for adventurous journalist to undertake the challenge of accessing commercial aircraft and their flight decks as a security expose. The inadequacy of current measures has also been highlighted when unauthorised personnel have been discovered on aircraft even availing themselves of the in flight drinks. 1.2 Access to secure and airside areas Due to the scope and size of a typical airport it is inevitable that secure areas are unattended for long periods of time, and relatively minor lapses can result in unauthorised access. These problems are further exasperated by the now extensive practice of moving passengers between terminals on air side buses. 1.3 Visual Records of passengers, and screened baggage. Although many airports now routinely screen and X-ray all passengers and their carry on luggage, even if this is recorded it can be difficult and time consuming to review the data efficiently. It is also rare for there to be a visual record of passengers and their carry on luggage at the point of actual boarding even though passengers are naturally funnelled through a boarding gate, even when ultimate boarding is by bus. It would also be virtually impractical, and impossible within a short time frame, to review and collate available video data observing a specific passenger's progress through the airport, including check in, security screening, and then boarding utilising conventional tape based time lapse recording technology.

2. Network Video Appliances. 2.1 Overview A new generation of CCTV solution is becoming available which allows CCTV data to be recorded in digital format on low cost hard disk drives. In addition to replacements for conventional Video Multiplexer and Time lapse recorder combinations, there are also network appliance style units, which are accessed exclusively via LAN or WAN. This has a number of significant advantages:
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Immediate random access to any recorded video by time/date or camera number. Integration of external data for easy accessing e.g. Passenger ticket data at a boarding gate. VMD based event detection, allowing rapid indexing to any scenes of interest within semi sterile areas. Low cost and ease of fast deployment with a large number of cameras in a large distributed location such as Airports, with minimal or no cabling infrastructure requirement. Central Control room can be deployed at low cost with minimal infrastructure required. Continuous self test, monitoring and integrity checking with reporting to a central terminal(s) ensuring effective operation and management of total system integrity across a large number of cameras and recorders.

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2.2 NetVu Vanguard This is a low cost network video recording node for up to 16 cameras. Using a single 80Gb drive (expansion available for second drive) recording capacity in excess of a week compared to the equivalent of using a 24 hour timelapse video tapes. Much greater periods can be achieved by utilising VMD / activity detection and time scheduled recording. Connection to a control room can be by single network CAT5 cable. In many instances existing network cables, or fibre optic cables, can be utilised which may already be provided for existing CCTV use. The existing camera can be connected as one camera on the unit. Alarm contacts allow events to be logged such as doors, to allow easy indexing to recorded data. In addition further data can be received either via the network as IP data, or by direct connection of serial data, and displayed and recorded with the CCTV images. This may be used, for example, to record boarding card data scanned at the boarding gate to allow easy identification of the passenger actually boarding under a specific boarding authority. 2.3 NetVu Vantage This unit allows up to 64 cameras to be connected, with storage up to 8 Tbytes or more. This allows existing CCTV cameras to be integrated into the networked digital environment for very low installation and system cost. 2.4 FlightVu Aircraft Video Recorder This fully flight and aviation certified unit provides the same range of capabilities in an avionics format unit. All access is via IP, and hence the unit can immediately integrate with new or existing airport Gatelink wireless LAN infrastructure. No further airport infrastructure would be required, and the equipment would be fully interoperable with the NetVu equipment operating in the land based environment.

Any external datalink, from 9600baud upwards, would allow images to be accessed, either live or recorded whilst the aircraft was airborne. The combination of external contact and VMD based activation would allow very quick review and confirmation of any unauthorised access to the aircraft. Two audio channels are also available for recording. The unit typically has a single 2.5" format disk drive, with storage capacities currently up to 30 Gbytes. This allows over three days of continuous recording at 24 Hr timelapse rates although much faster recording rates could be achieved, or longer durations, based on activity. The unit can report any activation to a central control location, allowing immediate surveillance and review of any access, authorised or otherwise, to the aircraft. Full provision is incorporated for managing its own dedicated battery supply, in addition to utilising the aircraft's existing power sources. A typical installation would involve miniature internal cameras viewing each access door, the cockpit, and baggage areas as required. Additional cameras can also be added to provide protection and recording of air rage incidents. Existing cockpit monitors are available which give the flight crew the ability to view any camera scene from the cockpit, including passenger disturbance or attack on the cockpit door. This technology has already been successfully deployed in Executive BBJ applications, and with the newly announced lower cost units, become viable cost option for commercial airliners. 2.5 TransVu mobile recorders These units provide the video recording facilities for ground based vehicles, including shuttle buses, baggage trucks, and ground handling vehicles. These can again store in excess of 72 hours recording, and can be accessed at any time for either live or recorded data utilising the wireless LAN Gatelink technology.

3. Security Solution Overview 3.1 System Architecture A complete solution giving total airport wide coverage would typically consist of the following elements:
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LAN deployed video servers at entry points to terminals, in particular at metal detector gates, and also recording images from habd baggae scanning X-ray machines. LAN deployed video servers covering boarding areas, boarding gate access doors, and any apron access doors. Data can be stored with the images and in a record index database as received from boarding card scanners and access control systems etc. WLAN deployed video servers on aircraft, whether at air bridges, or parked out on apron areas, with VMD detection to alert to any unauthorised access to the aircraft. WLAN deployed videos servers on ground vehicles in particular air side shuttle buses. Central control room receiving all video over LAN, allowing: / response to any alarm event from either ground or aircraft based systems whilst at the airport. / real time viewing of any camera. / review of any recorded camera / indexing of any video data by activation, time, or external data input. / Reporting of any system exceptions from either equipment failure or tampering with the system. This can include individual camera failure. Central data store allowing any significant video data requiring further review to be downloaded and retained as required.

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3.2 Incident Room Due to the increasing levels of CCTV, there can now be a significant problem with the scale and range of CCTV evidence that needs to be collated from a wide range of sources. After even relatively modest terrorist acts, e.g. the IRA bomb attack on the BBC Centre in London, there can be many thousands of tapes to collate and review. These can often require a huge spectrum of combinations of recording equipment, both video multiplexer formats, and also video recorder timelapse formats. This can slow the review process significantly, further exacerbated by the lack of indexing, both of the tapes themselves and the footage within. Within the solution as described in this paper it is possible to integrate an independent storage facility and Incident Review Room. At relatively low capital cost, this would allow secure review of all video sources, and the ability to secure a safe copy of any required footage. This would not only have the benefit of faster progress, but also ensure that an overview can be assessed quickly, to ensure that all possible relevant evidence can be assessed and secured. The watermarking facilities included within the equipment ensures that the secure copy retained within the Incident Review Room can be treated as "first evidence". 3.3 System Benefits The system as described above would allow complete tracking of passengers and personnel through all phases of passenger progress. In addition all secure and sterile areas can be recorded, with any unexpected access immediately reported to a central control room.

The specific system design benefits from utilising a network appliance video server approach as described above are:
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Minimal additional cabling would require to be installed across the total airport infra-structure. Even multiple video server nodes can be connected back to the central monitoring location by a single network connection utilising low cost 10/100 network switches. Cameras in each area only need to be wired a short distance to the nearest video node. As an example the wiring and installation cost at an existing metal detector and X-ray area would be minimal. Wiring for additional cameras in individual boarding areas and air bridges, and integration to existing boarding card scanners would be minimised by connecting to a local video server node. Aircraft and ground vehicles would be integrated at no further expense by utilising connectivity already provided by existing or proposed Gatelink solutions. Sufficient video storage would be achieved within each storage node, removing the need for central video tape storage and management from a large number of cameras. This also limits the amount of bandwidth being used on a continuos basis from ground vehicles and aircraft over the wireless LAN infrastructure, and over the fixed LAN infrastructure for other units. Sophisticated scheduling, VMD activation, and external input integration allows the majority of data to be viewed on demand based on exception management, rather than many operators viewing hundreds of monitors continuously. This philosophy has already bee successfully applied in large Casinos where many hundreds of cameras are monitored by a very small number of security personnel. Complete interoperability between all networked video units allow multiple work stations to monitor and mange video data from cameras anywhere within the airport facility, whether they are existing CCTV system cameras, ground based, vehicle based or aircraft based. Senior management and key security personnel would be able to access and review data from anywhere within the airport facility. Open architecture design implemented on TCP/IP ensures future compatibility, expandability, and integration with products from other vendors whose equipment operates on industry standard protocols. This also allows rapid deployment, utilising existing network infrastructure.