General Dynamics [GD] has received a potential three-year, $27.3 million contract from the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) to upgrade the CCTV security camera system at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to include more cameras, greater situational awareness, and the introduction of video analytics.
Under the contract GD Information Technology business will integrate a new video management system, which will be supplied by Israel’s NICE Systems, into the airport’s existing security management platform, which is the Situator security software that is also supplied by NICE. Situator provides users greater situational awareness through the integration of various sensors but it also allows for operational management and processing.
The existing CCTV system at LAX uses between 1,300 and 1,400 analog cameras that were upgraded about 18-months ago to incorporate a digital signal for their video images, Dom Nessi, deputy executive director and chief information officer within LAWA’s Information Management and Technology Group, tells HSR. The system had also been capturing some of the video on a short-term, 24-hour, tape-based video storage drive.
Part of the upgrade includes a digital video storage system supplied by Hewlett-Packard [HPQ] and the addition of more cameras to bring the system to closer to 3,000 cameras, Nessi says.
The new video management platform will include some video analytics, including motion detection, and airport security examining additional analytics that it may want to include in the future, Nessi says. The analytics will enable the video management software to trigger the security management platform to capture an image immediately to allow for security officials and operators in the Airport Resources Coordination Center to address the issue, he said.
“This is a major upgrade for us,” Nessi says. The upgrade “eliminates a very old, antiquated legacy system,” he says. And video analytics represent a “new frontier” for security at the airport, he said.
The upgrade will also enable the airport to integrate additional systems in the future, with plans to integrate the physical access control system in addition to video analytics, Nessi said. If a door alarms, cameras on either side of the door will take a picture, he said.
“What we’re really trying to do is integrate it into the fabric of our security profile much more so than we were able to with the old analog system,” Nessi said. “Our camera views will become much more usable because we will be tying them into the situational awareness software, which ties into GIS, [and] we’ll be able to expand it to mobile devices at some point in the future.”
GD will also install 120 new workstations to replace current workstations, enabling users to see video images at their terminals. The company will also train more than 120 users.
GD says it has been providing services to LAX for the past five years. Previous work has included relocating the information technology hub, integrating the existing video monitoring system into the LAWA systems, and implementing video streams via the LAWA internet protocol network.
LAX is the third busiest passenger airport in the U.S. and sixth busiest in the world.