The Brief
The site required a replacement for an ageing analogue CCTV estate that had suffered repeated failures during winter months and could no longer keep up with modern operational demands. The integrator's brief was specific: full perimeter coverage, verification of any thermal detection event within 15 seconds, and hardware that would survive a North-Atlantic winter without requiring physical intervention.
NDAA compliance was non-negotiable, and every component had to be traceable to a British manufacturer with an auditable supply chain.
The Approach
Redvision engineers worked alongside the integrator's design team for six months before a single camera was specified. Site surveys identified 24 strategic camera positions along the perimeter, each covering an overlap of approximately 50m with the next position.
A layered detection-plus-verification model was deployed: thermal cameras provide always-on detection across the fence line, with PTZ assets slewed by the VMS to verify any alert within seconds. Control room operators confirm and hand-off to the response team.
The Equipment
- 24 × X4 COMMANDER PTZ - 4MP, 37x optical zoom, IR white-light hybrid illumination to 450m, IP66 / IK10 housing.
- 16 × VEGA Thermal - long-range thermal detection at 1.2km, paired with overlapping PTZ coverage.
- 4 × Knight Series NVR - RAID 6 with hot-swap, edge-cache failover, 90 days of retention at full frame rate.
- 2 × RedCop Tower - deployable units for construction phases and temporary gate relocations.
The Outcome
Eighteen months in, the system has maintained a 100% uptime record. Three winter seasons have passed with no weather-related failures; the documented operating floor of -40°C has been verified twice during North-Sea cold snaps.
Response times have improved measurably: thermal-to-verification hand-off is averaging 8.4 seconds, comfortably inside the 15-second contractual requirement. The integrator has since specified Redvision hardware on two further MoD framework projects.
“Redvision didn't try to sell us cameras - they asked us what the threat model looked like first. That's rare in this industry, and it showed up in the way the system actually performs.”
- Project Lead, Tier-1 Defence Integrator
