Patent Grant
7068161
The described technology relates generally to analyzing security of a facility to withstand a terrorist attack.
The security of facilities such as military installations, nonmilitary government installations, corporate campuses, and nuclear power plants has been a concern for quite some time. As terrorist attacks increase, the security of these facilities also need to increase. From time to time various organizations, such as a nuclear regulatory agency or a branch of the military, may promulgate directives or guidelines relating to the security of facilities. For example, a branch of the military may promulgate a directive that no building within a military base should be within 100 feet of the perimeter of the base unless the perimeter fencing meets a certain requirement (e.g., includes razor wire). As another example, a corporation may promulgate a rule that access to each door of its buildings is to be secured and that each window exposed to the outside of the corporate campus must be permanently closed.
An organization may promulgate directives listing many requirements that should be complied with to address various security threats. If a facility has many buildings, it may be a difficult and time-consuming task to ascertain whether each building complies with the requirements. For example, a single building may have more than 100 windows that each must be analyzed to determine whether it complies with the appropriate security requirements. In addition, as an organization promulgates new directives and modifies existing directives, the process of ascertaining whether each building complies with the requirements of the new directives and modified directives needs to be performed.
When a facility has many buildings, it can be difficult for a person responsible for the security of the facility (e.g., security personnel) to know which buildings currently comply with the requirements, which buildings do not, and which buildings have not even been evaluated for compliance. In addition, since some requirements may be more important than others, security personnel may want to track which requirements are complied with by each building so that efforts to comply with the security requirements can be prioritized.
It would be desirable to have a computer system that would assist security personnel to identify what security requirements are met for each building of a facility.
A method and system for analyzing the security of a facility is provided. In one embodiment, the security system evaluates whether the elements of a facility comply with security requirements and provides a graphical representation of the facility with the results of the evaluation displayed. For example, the facility may be a military base and the elements may be buildings or open areas (e.g., a baseball field) within the base. One security requirement may specify the minimum thickness of a window, and another may specify the minimum distance between each building and the facility perimeter. The security system provides a user interface through which security personnel can provide information describing the characteristics of each element of a facility. The characteristics may include the thickness of a window of a building and the distance from the building to the facility perimeter. The security system stores the provided information in a database. The security system then applies a rule for each security requirement (e.g., distance to perimeter should be more than 100 feet) to determine whether each element complies with the security requirement. The security system then displays a map of the facility with elements highlighted to indicate whether they comply with the security requirements. For example, each element that fails to comply with at least one security requirement may be highlighted in red, and each element that complies with all the security requirements may be displayed in green. The security system may also allow a user to select a security requirement or subset of security requirements whose compliance is indicated by highlighting. For example, if a user selects a security requirement relating to window thickness, then the security system may highlight only those elements that do not comply with the window thickness security requirement. In this way, security personnel can easily visualize and identify which elements satisfy which security requirements.
In one embodiment, the security system uses a geographic information system (“GIS”) to control the displaying of the map of the facility. The GIS may have a database that describes the location of buildings, roads, parking areas, fencing, use areas, and so on of a facility. The security system invokes the GIS to display a map and provides an indication of the highlighting that is to be used for each building or, more generally, each element. The GIS displays the map with the indicated highlighting and allows a user to zoom in and out and scroll around the map. When a user selects a displayed element (e.g., a building), the security system displays detailed information about the element. For example, the security system may display a dialog box that lists each security requirement and indicates whether the selected building complies with each security requirement. The security system may also allow the user to select the types of elements to be displayed. For example, the user may request to view the buildings and fences of the facility, but not the roads and parking areas.
In one embodiment, the security system allows a user to input certain information about a characteristic of a building (or more generally an element) that was not initially provided. For example, the user may know that the building has been reinforced and thus is now blast resistant. After the user indicates that the building is blast resistant, the security system may reevaluate whether any of the security requirements have been met. The security system may also allow the user to input mitigation information about a security requirement for a building. For example, a security requirement may specify the minimum distance between a building and the facility perimeter. That requirement, however, may be mitigated by placing a jersey barrier between the perimeter and the building. In such a case, the security system allows the user to indicate the measures taken to mitigate the security risks. When the security system subsequently displays that building, it may use a different highlighting to indicate that, although the security requirement has not been complied with, the risk has been mitigated.
In one embodiment, the security system may allow the user to relax certain security requirements to help a user evaluate the cost/benefit tradeoffs of strictly complying with a security requirement. For example, a facility may have 10 buildings that do not comply with a 100-foot minimum distance to perimeter security requirement. One solution might be to move the entire perimeter. If the minimum distance is relaxed to 90 feet, however, it may be that only one building does not comply with the relaxed requirement. If so, the security personnel may decide that the additional security benefit of moving the perimeter is not worth the cost. The security system may display the nine buildings with highlighting to indicate that, although they do not comply with the security requirement, they do comply with the relaxed security requirement. The security personnel may decide to perform mitigation for the tenth building and perform no or minimal mitigation for the nine other buildings.
As these display pages indicate, the security system can be used to evaluate whether the buildings of a military base comply with security requirements. One skilled in the art will appreciate that the security system can be used to analyze the security in many other environments. Although different data would be collected and different security requirements would be specified, one skilled in the art will know how to adapt the described embodiment to those environments.
Table 1 lists the security requirements for the buildings of a military base in one embodiment.
The security system takes the information provided about the characteristics of a building and calculates various values from the provided information. For example, the calculated values may include the distance to the closest building and whether the window treatments are adequate. Table 2 illustrates some sample calculations that are used in determining compliance with the 12 security requirements.
After the values are calculated, the security system then determines whether the building complies with each security requirement. Table 3 illustrates the rules for compliance for each security requirement and the corresponding highlighting. Green corresponds to adequate, yellow corresponds to mitigated, red corresponds to inadequate, and gray corresponds to incomplete or not surveyed.
The security system may be implemented on computer systems that may include a central processing unit, memory, input devices (e.g., keyboard and pointing devices), output devices (e.g., display devices), and storage devices (e.g., disk drives). The memory and storage devices are computer-readable media that may contain instructions that implement the security system. In addition, the data structures and message structures may be stored or transmitted via a data transmission medium, such as a signal on a communications link. Various communications links may be used, such as the Internet, a local area network, a wide area network, or a point-to-point dial-up connection.
One skilled in the art will appreciate that although specific embodiments of the security system have been described herein for purposes of illustration, various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, one skilled in the art will appreciate that the information used to evaluate compliance with a security requirement can be derived from the map information (e.g., distance to perimeter). The security requirements can also relate to any type of security risk, such as a biological hazard, chemical hazard, or aerial hazard (e.g., a missile). One skilled in the art will appreciate that the principles of the security system can be applied to non-security environments. For example, a system may be developed to analyze safety requirements, rather than security requirement. A city may promulgate various safety requirements such as maximum distance of a building to fire hydrant, minimum earthquake standards, minimum number of exits for a building, minimum distance between a structure and a chemical tank, and so on. The city's fire department may use the safety system to track, analyze, and view the compliance to the safety requirements. Similarly, a corporation may use the safety system to track compliance of the buildings of its campus. A system may also be developed to analyze other types of requirements such as environmental, building code, and health requirements. In addition, the elements of a facility can include permanent and temporary structures, tanks, sewers, power lines, waste storage area, docks, air fields, vehicles, and so on. The elements can also include sub-elements of an element to form a hierarchy of elements. For example, each door of a building can be a sub-element that can be separately highlighted to indicate its compliance with the requirements. The system may allow a user to select the type and level of sub-element to be displayed. The facilities can include shipping terminals, ship ports, airports, a building, a city, a university, fuel depots, manufacturing facilities, shopping malls, parking structures, and so on. In general, a system can be provided that allows for the tracking, analysis, and viewing of compliance of a facility having elements with requirements. Accordingly, the invention is not limited except by the appended claims.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that specific embodiments of the invention have been described herein for purposes of illustration, but that various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.
The United States Government has rights in this invention pursuant to Architect-Engineer Contract No. F41624-00-D-8021, dated 17 Feb. 2000, and Delivery Order/Call No. 0125, dated 14 Sep. 2001, between the Department of the Air Force/AFMC and CH2M Hill, Inc.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4964060 | Hartsog | Oct 1990 | A |
| 5295062 | Fukushima | Mar 1994 | A |
| 5297252 | Becker | Mar 1994 | A |
| 5440498 | Timm | Aug 1995 | A |
| 5650800 | Benson | Jul 1997 | A |
| 5726884 | Sturgeon et al. | Mar 1998 | A |
| 5815417 | Orr et al. | Sep 1998 | A |
| 5977872 | Guertin | Nov 1999 | A |
| 6003010 | Scolly et al. | Dec 1999 | A |
| 6243483 | Petrou et al. | Jun 2001 | B1 |
| 6293861 | Berry | Sep 2001 | B1 |
| 6408307 | Semple et al. | Jun 2002 | B1 |
| 6415291 | Bouve et al. | Jul 2002 | B1 |
| 6574561 | Alexander et al. | Jun 2003 | B1 |
| 6610977 | Megerle | Aug 2003 | B1 |
| 6651011 | Bache | Nov 2003 | B1 |
| 6701281 | Satoh et al. | Mar 2004 | B1 |
| 20010027388 | Beverina et al. | Oct 2001 | A1 |
| 20010027389 | Beverina et al. | Oct 2001 | A1 |
| 20020016757 | Johnson et al. | Feb 2002 | A1 |
| 20030004693 | Neiman et al. | Jan 2003 | A1 |
| 20030127122 | Gower | Jul 2003 | A1 |
| 20030210139 | Brooks et al. | Nov 2003 | A1 |
| 20040117624 | Brandt et al. | Jun 2004 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20050024204 A1 | Feb 2005 | US |
