Port Manatee, Florida's fifth largest deepwater seaport, has installed an automated video surveillance system designed to detect and track intruders, including vehicles and vessels, and then instantly notify law enforcement.
GuardianWATCH was developed by Guardian Solutions of Sarasota, FL, originally for the Dept. of Defense to detect and track camouflaged snipers. The company modified its product for the port to help it detect both landside and waterside threats and sound an alarm quickly.
GuardianWATCH is a real-time software system that simultaneously controls all of the ports existing security video cameras, acquiring and processing video in real-time. It can detect and track intruders to determine security violations and notify law enforcement while recording the event, the company noted.
The system can detect up to 25 intruders per camera at a distance four times greater than normal video motion detectors. Abnormal activity within only 12 pixels of a video image will trigger the system to further "interrogate" the target.
It is also designed to detect intruders in dense woods, blowing grasslands, and along shorelines where traditional video motion detectors have trouble, the company said.
