Home Invasion - Perimeter Intrusion Help
kochevnik
Posts: 30
Right.
So we were home invaded a couple of weeks ago.
I won't go thru every tiny detail but the gist of it is the guy hit the room where my electronics bench was (saw it thru a lit window) which happens to be right next to the room where my 5 year old and 6 year old were sleeping. We went to bed at about 10:30 and around 11, when everyone else was asleep I heard some odd noises from the back rooms - thought it was my kids but got up to check as I got to their room I realized the noise was coming from the computer room and when I entered that room I realized some buttwipe was sawing at the screen window with a knife. I yelled at him and he took off like a rabbit. Never did see a face. Needless to say, no sleep the rest of the night. Next day, you could see where the screen had been sawed all the way down vertically and when I had surprised him he had gotten about half the horizontal width done. It was incredibly stupid move as it was very obvious we were home and that we had just gone to sleep.
So here is how this relates to Propellers - in the definiton of irony, I have spent the last few months working on a security system, starting with the cameras first. The cameras were to run thru a mux I picked up off ebay and on to my PC where I used the Powerbuilder language (basis of my daytime Software Engineer job) to talk to the Propeller which controlled the cameras and talked to the mux - all serial over cat5. At the time of the crime it was still a work in progress, it has since been mostly completed and I am starting to add to it.
My next step is to add sensors and/or some type of perimeter intrusion system.
I looked at buried fiber systems but I think a leaky coax system is a better bet :
http://ftp.ee.duke.edu/undergrads/IndStudy03/WongS2003.html
and
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA072818
and
http://www.detekion.com/pdfs/wave.pdf
The thing is I have a background in software, not electronics so building a system like this is out of my league. But I figured there are a lot of really sharp guys here and I really wanted whatever system I came up with to link to my Prop based camera and sensor systems. I'm using QuickStarts (I have a case of them) to add various features to a complete system as I come up with each idea. The subsystems I have done already have good comms between the QS's and my rackmount PC's as well as the muxes for the cameras - so programing simple spin programs and doing simple discrete electronic designs on stripboards is within my abilities.
I don't know the rules for asking for paid help here - but I have some funds to throw at this project (not bottomless funds but enough I think) and based on what happened to my family a few weeks ago, the motivation to get this done is definitely there LOL. I'm an engineer of sorts myself so I do not expect perfection nor instant results, instead what I am looking for is one (or more) electronics wiz who can create a solid working prototype that I can tie into my existing system. I does not have to be sophisticated, it just needs to detect a human and send a signal.
So how about it - is this doable ?
If it is ok to ask, is anyone interested in the challenge ?
Many thanks
.................
So we were home invaded a couple of weeks ago.
I won't go thru every tiny detail but the gist of it is the guy hit the room where my electronics bench was (saw it thru a lit window) which happens to be right next to the room where my 5 year old and 6 year old were sleeping. We went to bed at about 10:30 and around 11, when everyone else was asleep I heard some odd noises from the back rooms - thought it was my kids but got up to check as I got to their room I realized the noise was coming from the computer room and when I entered that room I realized some buttwipe was sawing at the screen window with a knife. I yelled at him and he took off like a rabbit. Never did see a face. Needless to say, no sleep the rest of the night. Next day, you could see where the screen had been sawed all the way down vertically and when I had surprised him he had gotten about half the horizontal width done. It was incredibly stupid move as it was very obvious we were home and that we had just gone to sleep.
So here is how this relates to Propellers - in the definiton of irony, I have spent the last few months working on a security system, starting with the cameras first. The cameras were to run thru a mux I picked up off ebay and on to my PC where I used the Powerbuilder language (basis of my daytime Software Engineer job) to talk to the Propeller which controlled the cameras and talked to the mux - all serial over cat5. At the time of the crime it was still a work in progress, it has since been mostly completed and I am starting to add to it.
My next step is to add sensors and/or some type of perimeter intrusion system.
I looked at buried fiber systems but I think a leaky coax system is a better bet :
http://ftp.ee.duke.edu/undergrads/IndStudy03/WongS2003.html
and
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA072818
and
http://www.detekion.com/pdfs/wave.pdf
The thing is I have a background in software, not electronics so building a system like this is out of my league. But I figured there are a lot of really sharp guys here and I really wanted whatever system I came up with to link to my Prop based camera and sensor systems. I'm using QuickStarts (I have a case of them) to add various features to a complete system as I come up with each idea. The subsystems I have done already have good comms between the QS's and my rackmount PC's as well as the muxes for the cameras - so programing simple spin programs and doing simple discrete electronic designs on stripboards is within my abilities.
I don't know the rules for asking for paid help here - but I have some funds to throw at this project (not bottomless funds but enough I think) and based on what happened to my family a few weeks ago, the motivation to get this done is definitely there LOL. I'm an engineer of sorts myself so I do not expect perfection nor instant results, instead what I am looking for is one (or more) electronics wiz who can create a solid working prototype that I can tie into my existing system. I does not have to be sophisticated, it just needs to detect a human and send a signal.
So how about it - is this doable ?
If it is ok to ask, is anyone interested in the challenge ?
Many thanks
.................
Comments
Just a couple of ideas beyond simple a warning device. Perhaps if you get this working you can market it to the local stop and robs that typically don't have/set the tapes or even forget to change them......
Frank
http://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/txtSearch/pir/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/83/Default.aspx
And here are some off-site documents that explain how they work:
http://www.panasonic-electric-works.com/peweu/en/downloads/ds_61802_0002_en_napion.pdf
http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Panasonic%20Electric%20Works%20PDFs/AMN%20Design%20Manual.pdf?cshift_ck=null&client_id=5042
http://www.diyalarms.net/motionsummary.html
Mind you, PIRs can be triggered by small animals, flickering heat sources, etc. so they are mostly good for clicking on lights, activating cameras, etc. or providing some other deterrent.
http://www.diyalarms.net/glassbreak_summary.html
Another thing you can use are the classic magnet +magnetic reed sensors, which you can place on your doors and windows.
http://www.diyalarms.net/contacts_summary.html
These are used by a lot of standard security companies and are easy to hook up to a Propeller chip, which can monitor many doors at once and cause the alarm to sound different signals depending on which door or window or region on your house is being invaded. Of course, you can set all of this up to operate lights, cameras, probably even have it automatically dial a phone number. A single Propeller chip can monitor a lot in situations like this.
I'm glad your family is safe. That sounds like a very unnerving experience.
Do you plan to have the system call you or others when there's an alarm?
Tubular made a small board that uses a Telit module. A Prop could use it to make a call when the alarm goes off.
I have an ebook on my hard drive titled Intruder Alarms. It's written by Gerald Honey.
I thought you might want to take a look at it so I uploaded it to my forum index. I'll delete it in a couple of days so it doesn't keep taking up so much space on Parallax's server.
Hopefully you'll find some more ideas in the book.
'
My Family depends on ME to protect them....I take no chances...
'
An early warning on what window is in compromise is a plus...
Initially we had a couple of false alarms on our alarm system (back in the early 80s) and then realised the PIRs (infrared) were falsely detecting temperature changes at some times. I replaced the PIRs with dual PIR & Microwave motion detectors - that fixed the false alarms. Our house was 2 storey, so we always had the downstairs section armed at night.
You could have an outside perimeter detector. Provided it just turned a light on or made a low volume noise (for daytime), perhaps you could scare away any intruders before they attempted to breakin. You could search Parallax, eBay, electronic stores, etc for different detectors. IR detectors used in some small shops to let them know when someone enters the shop can be ideal. Look around and I am sure you will find sensors which are suitable and then it is only a matter of adding them to your prop system. A google search will no doubt also reveal some simple alarm sensors you could build and interface to the prop simply too.
As for backup, I will relate a backup method used by a friend of mine. He built a concrete box outside underground. In that he put an external hard drive with usb cable. He wired the usb cable thru the wall and then plugged into the usb into the pc for backup. The problem... he had a few days of rain and the concrete box filled with water and his hard drive died. If he had positioned the box better, with drainage, and also placed the drive in a waterproof housing and then sat that on a brick and placed a bucket over it with a brick on top to hold the bucket down, the drive would remain above water under the bucket even if the box filled with water.
I'd strongly recommend you report this attempt to your local police, ask them about other breakins in your area (cars, houses, etc) so you can understand the level of threat. And ask them about things you can do to secure your house. I don't know what country you live in, but if you have a "trusted" police force (unfortunately that may not be the case everywhere in the world) then you may ask if they can visit your property and give you some advise. It may be very enlightenting. Being friends with your local police are always a good thing.
If you get on well with your immediate neighbours (including the ones behind) then I'd suggest discussing this event with them, find out what they've seen/heard, also give them a heads up. Neighbourhood watch is always a good thing! You especially want to ensure that you have them onside if you install an audible alarm. If it false alarms too often then you will have a bad neighbourhood experience. If you implement a camera based solution, you should really discuss this with your neighbours if the cameras are visible to them and where they have reason to believe they have a privacy concern (ie. your camera is pointed toward their pool/spa). My neighbours and I have exchanged contact details if their are any issues and take down the license plates date/time for cars that we don't know. Simple controls, and it's helfpul to get a call from your neighbour that you've had a delivery. Elderly neighbours are even better at being a detective control!
Security is about risk management. You can reduce the risk through Preventative and Detective controls you can not eliminate it. The more controls you have, the potential lower risk, but also the more restrictive. Preventative controls are things like steel window grates, steel door frames and doors, etc. Detective are things like IR motion sensors, monitored video cameras, etc. In some cases obvious detective controls may be psycological preventative controls (ie. an obvious video camera, and a sign saying "remotely monitored" video camera, whether it's monitored or not, is a preventative control (the burgular may just go away as the risk is high to them at being caught). Normally before implementing a security system you'd do a risk analysis, analyze the threats (ie. people that want to do you harm (do you live in an area of high unemployment, are you close to a rail line where people out of area can easily visit, etc), and vulnerabilities (windows that won't lock, doors that can be brute forced etc). And as always assess what is up for loss and the potential for it to be lost (likelihood). Before then looking at compensating controls. Again, although it's fun thinking about all sorts of technical solutions to detect intruders, please consider the basics and also cost/risk mitigation. Sure I could bury optic fibre serpentine in my yard and use a TDR to detect where someone has stepped by the change in the reflections on the fibre, great if I was a government/military, but overkill for residential.
People often forget to look at their vulnerabilities in total, for example most look at only securing the easy to breach areas like door and windows but complete forget that a would be burgular can (and do) lift up roof tiles then push through the ceiling / go through the manhole. Also if an intruder can be obscured by a tree when
You should determine whether camera's are permissible in your area, some places (like in NSW Australia has survelance legislation that requires that you have to signpost that you are using cameras and their purpose, otherwise any images are not admissable in court (the perpetrator could go free!). In some countries privacy legislation may require you to get permission from your neighbours and local government for cameras on your property where your neighbours properties may be in view.
Approaches to consider;
- Consider an internal monitoring alarm in your house so you can get peace of mind at night and sleep. Arm it when you go to bed, it detects and alarms on windows/door changes, and motion changes in key rooms that are not expected to have traffic (ie. your server room). If you have pets you can get pet friendly alarm detections (combination of IR & Microwave, only detects when both tigger). Make sure it doesn't keep your neighbours awake when your kid goes to the bathroom!
- Don't advertise yourself as a target (having a porche & lamborgini parked in the driveway makes a statement to a would be criminal that you may have something of interest inside). Keep the blinds drawn on your server window (may be a little late for your last visitor). If you buy a 12 foot OLED TV don't leave the box outside your house as rubbish to be picked up on bin night.
- You are seen as more secure than others in your street. Alarm stickers "This property is remotely monitoried" on the windows, Alarm box with a blue flashing light up under the eves are helpful. Having security screens on the doors and windows. Cameras around the bordors of the house. These can just be for cosmetic reasons without being actually working.
- If you have an alarm, don't have it false trigger by just firing on an event like a spider in the PIR. There are new combination alarm sensors that use microwave and PIR so they false trigger less.
- If you have an alarm system, ensure it has a battery back up, so that a power failure wont cause it to fail.
- If you have an alarm that is monitored, look at some of the options, PSTN dial back is so yesterday, Internet monitoring may seem like fun but can be vulnerable to an ISP failure. SMS notifications can be a good idea - for an old mobile phone and cheap sim card your alarm can contact you :-)
- Ensure that you are always seen to be home. Don't leave the lawn un-mowed. When you are away have the neighbours pick up the blinds. Have lights on timers around the house, so they go on/off at the time you expect.
- Get a dog. Man's best friend has always been a good deterent. We've spent 40,000 years training them to be our intruder detective/preventative control. A dog in the house will bark at intruders just as well as outside.
- Engrave your valuables with your drivers licence details, that will prevent the would be intruder from being easily able to sell what they have stolen. A $20 engraver and a few hours can do the trick. Having commercial grade stickers on the windows indicating that valuables on the property have been tagged to prevent resale may also be a consideration.
- Get insurance for your stuff that may get stolen when you are not at home.
At the end of the day you need to ensure you and your family feel safe in your home with minimal amount of cost and disruption.
Let us know how you go.
An alarm I was considering was a "neighbourhood watch" where it uses WIFI to interconnect you and your neighbours houses, your neighbours have cameras pointed at your house, you do at theirs. Then when something goes wrong they have the copy of the data pertaining to the event, thus reducing the likelihood of tampering (unless it's your neighbour who broke in!).
Something I've noticed about technical controls - If you have a monitoring camera, make sure that the logs are regularly checked and have some kind of watchdog. We had an event (someone tried tampering with our car) our neighbour happened to have a camera that looked up their driveway and incidently up our driveway. It would have been great to have seen their logs - unfortunately the PC that did the monitoring had a hard drive crash months before and had been logging nothing..... Monitoring controls are only as good as the last time they were checked.
In regards to motion sensing cameras (you can buy them, they display only frames of when something changes), they only work when their is stable lighting conditions (otherwise the lighting changes come up as a changed event) and only as good as what they are pointed at. I recall seeing an installation where the guards screen would display only the most recent changed camera, so if someone was walking through the facility, the guards screen would seem to track them. They had cameras on every corridor pointing down every corridor. However in walking through the facility I noticed a bunch of them that had been mispointed, were facing/glancing at walls rather than the center of the corridor. And of course unless they were regularly tested then it's unlikely the regular guards would have known, simply the cameras pointing at walls would never indicate a change. Clearly a "smart" monitoring solution would use statistics to detect failures in the control, ie. if a camera never or rarely triggered then it was either in a no/low traffic area or it wasn't working/wasn't working as intended.
While IR motion sensors were the staple of security monitoring, they can be easily defeated, they work on a sample and hold & compare solution. They use a bunch of Fresnel lenses to focus corridors of light/IR to the sensor, sample, hold the value, wait, sample again and compare. If the change is significant they trigger. Holding a piece of cardboard that is at "room temperature" in front of you will cause the sensor not to trigger. These days they are used with other sensors to give a better picture of what is happening.
I bought a parallax X-BAND motion detector to see whether this could be appropriately tuned to pick up people in and around the house, like all things, work/family have prevented me from investigating it further. If you have the time then I'd suggest giving this a consideration as it has the potential to provide meaningful data (more meaningful than an IR sensor that can be easily defeated).
Duane I downloaded all the zip files but when I unzipped them but all of the folders were empty.
I could write a book on the gun comment - but I will leave it at this - I had a gun, I have lots of guns, they were not particularly useful in this situation and even though the law where I live says that I have the right to protect my familly in the event of such a break-in, shooting someone would open me up to so many problems,that even if I 'won' in such a situation, I would still lose. My thinking is : far better to get better and earlier warning than just hearing someone sawing at your window in the middle of the night - thus all the work on early warning systems.
In many ways, this particular incident has been a gift - I have become much much more aware of how lax we are and have greatly tightened up our personal security in many many ways. The cameras are one step, and they do have motion detection on them that I am working on expanding - ePIR and microwave is also on the menu. But leaky coax is my holy grail, mostly because it is hidden underground and also because it can provide a complete perimeter warning at a good distance. We will be moving to the country in the next year or two so having a warning system that encircles the property is an important goal.
I know that I can buy such a system outright - and I will if it comes right down to it, but I would prefer to spend those thoudands of dollars in an effort to create a system that would be easier to repair and support than a commercial one would.
Again - if there is anyone out there who would be interested in tackling this, please let me know. If there is anyone who has suggestions on how to approach such a project, I would be very interested in hearing ANY suggestions.
Thx
Train it well.
Treat it well.
And it will protect you and your family to the death.
I can second that one!
Home security electronics only do so much. A police officer friend told me the best defense against burglary and home invasion is a dog. I agree!
Paul
@EA - good looking security system you have there!
Apparently, if the cameras make an unexpected noise then they get stared at more. But not that much of a noise as "Smith & Wesson" regardless how tempting it would be, the paperwork is just so tedious. (I would use voltages that would require a lot more than 1K Ohms pin protection).
They come in lots of different colors...
They are customizable...(My nickname "TtailspinFix" did not come from crashing airplanes...
And they are portable too...
Yes Sir, a good dog will go along way to help with security and piece of mind.
-Tommy
I have a "hybrid" cross between a schnauzer and a black lab. (looks like a miniature black lab) -- She makes plenty of noise at the sound of anyone who might be coming in, and I suspect she would turn into a flying set of miniature razor knives if someone was actually serious about doing harm.
I also have a very visible camera in my front room which has been noticed by the teen-friends after a usb drive was stolen off my desk last year.
OBC
What you want is a combination of systems...
Interior
Exterior
Perimeter
Ect..
Each one would have its own sub-systems.. Redundency in a security system is a must.
Cameras are not all that usefull for protection, The camera recorded the badguy actually cutting the window screen,
and then got great footage of the badguy running away with all the "loot". No protection will come from a camera.
and they are not the best of witnesses (as Toby Seckshund has attested).
But, as just one sub system of your security system, Cameras have a place,
When your "sensing" system alerts, you would check your monitor instead of wandering about, wondering if you are outnumbered or not.
I dont even have to get out of bed for this, as the cameras are wired to a recording/routing box to the TVs in my house.
Thats right, any TV remote in my house will give me a real time view of the outside world 24/7...
But how do I know when to check my cameras? I sleep heavy, so screaming alarms and sharp barking is required.
So I use Piezo speakers, flashing LED's, and Poodles, as part of the wake up sub systems.
For the sensor sub system, I use a combination of Pings((( (protected from the weather in tupperware containers.)
and IR sensors for the "homemade" part of the electronic alarms, I have some "commercial" sensors also,
It's up to the Dogs to handle the rest..They are free roaming autonomous sensors, as it were...
Family protection is a neccesity,
so a short disclaimer about any "homemade" or "commercial" security systems...
Don't "rely" on anything, built by anyone, anywhere, ever.. Especially if that anyone is human.
You will find, Human interaction is THE MOST unreliable part of any security system.
Switches forgotten to be activated.
Whole systems forgotten to be activated.
Batteries left to go dead.
Really bad karma
Ect. Ect..
And lets not fail to mention some of the many things that aren't even under your control..
Hard rain can set off my Pings(((
The dogs will bark at the wind.
The power lines will go down.
Wires cut by vandals.
Really bad luck.
Oh the list can go on and on...
Anyways, just be carefull and dillegent to make any security system installation secure and reliable,
Just don't "rely" on it...
-Tommy
-Tor
A frantically wagging tail and dancing on its back legs isn't much of a deterant.
Also you may want to look at the Spinneret project that I did for the Spinneret Contest, which it will let you monitor system from a work computer or your smart phone over the internet and the good thing about my system is, it only costs you internet bill that you are already paying for.
I will be happy to provide the PCB layout for you so you can have the boards made or you can use my schematics from the project report to make your own board to work with the Propeller Quick Start board that you have.
X10 is a good way to do some of this and I bet you could have it interact with a Propeller setup to do more sophisticated stuff...
Dogs are good too...
that was awful, I've been in similar situation, and that what keeps me going in these microcontrollers hobbys
since your a software guy; try looking at this image camera detection, you might play around it, and have the propeller or the microcontoller setup of your choice, act on what you tell it to do. I am against using robots to do bad things, but family first.
see the video clips to see what the software can do (same company):
http://www.roborealm.com/tutorial/usb_missile_launcher/slide040.php
and
http://www.roborealm.com/tutorial/Hand_Gestures/index.php
this doent use the Kinects, just a regular webcam
You can do a lot with electronics, but many burglars won't even touch a house with a dog in it.
My dad was an MD and a target to drug addicts. So he additionally never kept a gun, never locked his car, and never brought any addictive medication home. He had a hospital parking sticker on his car and other doctors that locked theirs frequently had broken windows and damage to locks. Another doctor also on our block did bring home addictive medications and was robbed 4-5 times over the years.
We have one South African here that tried using PIRs as a security perimeter (last name Bond, but I can't recall his Parallax avitar), but I think he gave up as they offered too many false alarms.
I'm a security Installer by trade.
As much as I understand your wanting to build this yourself, I suggest getting a proper Alarm System and DVR system in place.
You can go ahead and build yours..and see how they compare.
Rick