Repeated incidents of taggers spray-painting the temporary construction fence at a 21-acre religious and cultural center in Chino Hills, Calif., indicated a need for a more intelligent perimeter protection and monitoring solution. For the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir & Cultural Center, a robust perimeter protection system would be required to allow facility administrators to better monitor the perimeter of the property and protect an intricate and elaborate construction project going on inside the fence. To better protect the entire site and in particular, to safeguard the intricate architectural finishes, the BAPS community turned to an intelligent outdoor surveillance solution from SightLogix, Princeton, N.J.

The new temple, a traditional Hindu Mandir, is built of carved, pink sandstone blocks, each created by artisans and sent from India, together reflecting millions of man-hours of work. Five existing buildings on the Chino Hills site include one whose exterior is intricately hand-carved in teak wood. The Chino Hills project is part of the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), an organization that began in a small village in India in 1907.

The integrator on the project was FocusMicro, based in Mukilteo, Wash. Before turning to SightLogix technology to protect the site perimeter, BAPS had considered using a fiber optic-based fence sensor system. "We gave them the cost comparisons and the minute we did a demonstration, they immediately made their decision," said Ron Nyberg, regional sales manager of FocusMicro. "For aesthetic reasons, they were happy with the fact that they didn't have to physically strap something to their fence."

"We had looked at other options around the perimeter," added Kaivalyamurti Swami (KV Swami) of the BAPS Center. "We found they would be very expensive, hard to implement and would possibly result in many false alarms. We had a demo of the SightLogix equipment and we were very impressed with its ability to allow for pre-emptive decision making based on the data it provided." The manufacturer was also "very considerate" of BAPS status as a non-profit organization, he added.

System specifics

Six SightSensor visible sensor cameras are positioned on 30-foot poles located between 400 and 1,200 feet apart around the perimeter of the 21-acre site, each viewing an area that overlaps the adjacent sensor's field of view to avoid any blind spots. Designed for long-range protection of high-value assets in any outdoor environment, SightSensor cameras can detect a human or moving target within the visible view of the camera over an area covering as much as 1,500 feet, providing redundant coverage in critical areas for the BAPS facility.