Wave Infratech, the real estate arm of the Wave Group, is a leading player in the development of mixed-use residential and commercial properties. Some of its integrated townships include Wave City, Wave City Center, Wave Estate and Wave Royal Castle while its commercial projects include Wave One, Wave 1st Silver Tower and Wave Hubb.
The company is developing ‘Wave Smart City’ in Ghaziabad as ‘India's most liveable city’ -with a long-term commitment for its residents to run and manage the city facilities. To ensure smooth governance and functionality of all city elements, it is essential to develop certain smart elements that will help in running the city and integrate these smart elements to ensure seamless operations and improve the lifestyle of the city's residents. Wave City has been planned for over 9000 acres of development over next 20 years. Deepak Madan, VP - Information Systems, Wave Group.
The project implemented
In March 2014, they decided to implement ‘Integrated City Surveillance’. Twelve strategic locations were identified for installation of high definition PTZ cameras at a height of 21 meters. Since no power is available at these locations, they opted for
Solar Power with solar charged battery backup. These PTZ cameras have 20X Zoom and are capable of capturing live feed up to 800 meters during day time and up to 100 meters during night time. The live feeds from these cameras is recorded on a Network Area Storage (NAS) through wireless radio network. The same live feed is also displayed on two video panels in command room for security team to monitor. Access to this feed is also provided to security supervisors and top management on their mobile devices.
‘We are able to monitor over 250 acres of land by using PTZ cameras installed at each strategic locations,’ says Deepak.
T
he smart elements of the deployment
Real-time, actionable intelligence: They leveraged video analytics to minimize the hassle that goes into 24/7 surveillance. By integrating video analytics with city surveillance system, they analyze video footages to generate alerts for pre-defined behaviors This has helped them in periphery security of certain under-construction areas.
Use of Micro Drone for Surveillance: Wave City has huge surface area of 9000 Acres and less than 10% of this is under development. Periodic drone videography is done to access any unauthorized construction, encroachment, suspicious activity and progress of the city landscape. The highly efficient electric motors of Micro Drones allows for discrete and almost silent surveillance.
Solar Powered Wi-Fi Integrated Surveillance Network: All 12 PTZ Cameras installed on 12 towers (21 meter high) are operated by Solar Power. Live feeds from these cameras are transmitted to central command centre by radio modems which are also powered by Solar panels. There is a battery bank installed on these towers for backup during shadow hours. Each camera is fitted with one SD Card which store data in case of connectivity loss. This means, every aspect of any breakdown in system is covered to ensure 24x7 live feed from these cameras.
Business benefits
Improved Operational Effectiveness: ‘24x7 live surveillance of huge surface area of 9000 acres is a boon for our city administration,’ says Deepak. ‘Integration of surveillance system has improved automated surveillance and emergency reporting. We 'are able to manage emergency operations effectively. While protecting lives and property is the priority, city surveillance has also been good for post-incident investigation,’ adds Deepak.
This helped them in better management of security breaches based on alerts received from system. Drone videography has been very helpful for them in reaching far areas to identify any encroachment on city land.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership: TCO for Integrated city surveillance is much lower than traditional security guards deployment. The company started realizing savings after 20th month which include several intangible ones. In order to monitor this area, hundreds of security guards were deployed till before this system was implemented in April 2014. With this, they have been able to reduce the number of security guards required for patrolling of certain strategic locations. Their operational cost for surveillance has reduced by 2.4 lacs per month.
Improved City Administration: Periodic drone videography has helped them to curb unauthorized construction, encroachment, suspicious activity.
Future plans
‘Integrated city surveillance by deploying PTZ cameras over a radio network has benefited our business significantly. With features like real-time alerting and intelligent search, labor cost of monitoring are significantly reduced, providing a fast return-on investment,’ says Deepak. ‘We plan to enhance our decision making and automating processes to administer the city and we will rely more on drone surveillance to cover very large area of the city,’ adds Deepak.
