Heron Bros. is an award-winning construction and property development company with its headquarters in Draperstown, Magherafelt, Northern Ireland. It operates throughout the UK, Ireland, and Europe and employs over 250 people. The company recently built a garage, which will be accessed by approximately 140 vehicles, the majority of which are cars and vans with a smaller number of HGV lorries.
The new garage is accessed down a narrow single-track road that takes two-way traffic. To ensure the security of the site, Heron Bros. wanted vehicles to be able to access the garage through automatic gates without stopping to show a card to a reader.
Access control software
Inova Gates Ltd who design, manufacture and install high-quality automatic gates, were asked to install two sliding gates, each 7 meters wide to allow large vehicles to be able to turn in and out of the site. The requirement was that if a car or van approached, only the left-hand gate would open, but if a lorry approached, then both gates would open. An additional challenge for vehicle identification was that the access road runs at 90 degrees to the gates with no approach area in front of the gates.
Each valid vehicle was issued with a Transit button-activated windscreen tag
With the help of Nortech technical support, Inova specified a system using two Nedap Transit long-range readers together with a CRC200 control unit and Norpass3 access control software. Each valid vehicle was issued with a Transit button-activated windscreen tag. This avoids false detects, as the driver presses the button to activate the gate as the vehicle arrives at the gate.
Long reading range
One reader was installed on the inside of the gates for exit control and the other on the outside of the gate for entry control. The long reading range and wide read angle of the Transit reader enabled the installers to adjust the position and angle of each reader such that it detects tags in all types of vehicles. The access control system determines the type of vehicle by the access rights of the detected tag and operates the gates accordingly.
The benefits of the reader are as follows:
- Robust industrial reader design.
- Read a range of up to 10 meters.
- Reader is able to detect vehicle tags at difficult approach angles.
- Reliable long-range tag detection avoids manual intervention and reduces running costs.
- Easy windshield mounting of windscreen tag using a suction pad.
"Although the installation gave some challenges with the angle of the road to the reader, the technical teams of both Inova Gates and Nortech worked together to create a very satisfactory installation," said Cathal Rogers - General Manager, Inova Gates Ltd.
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