The company Listener Sicherheitssysteme GmbH was founded in 1996 and
is a small-sized company with 5 employees. The main business field of
the company is the development, installation, distribution and maintenance
of Burglary Detection Systems and other security systems for private
as well as commercial applications. The company distributes own products
and systems of other manufacturers as well. Main product is the LISTENER
burglary detection system family consisting of a basic device that can
be combined with additional units: The implementation of additional
sensors (conventional contact elements, movement detection) is possible
if necessary or requested by the customer.
The existing device detects burglaries on the basis of analog processing
of characteristic signals in the infrasonic frequency range. It can
be used for flats or small detached houses.
Objective of the Application Experiment was the improvement of the competitive
situation of the company, substituting the old, analogue based solution
by digital data processing methods. For this purpose, the DSP technology
was introduced to our specialists within the Application Experiment.
Using this technology and the corresponding software developed in this
project, restrictions in the analysis of the very complex input signals
that were existing up to now, were overcome. The in-depth analysis of
burglary-typical signals and their differentiation from normal disturbances
is now possible and guarantees a higher system reliability and the prevention
of false alarms. Buildings, offices and flats up to an area of 400m²
can be now supervised.
Within the specification task, the DSP AD2181 from Analog Devices was
selected, because this component met all our requirements, having a
reasonable price at the same time.
Listener's microelectronics experiences were restricted to overall knowledge
in the design of analogue and digital systems using standard components
and PCB design in through-hole technology before. Experiences in microcontroller
or DSP technology were not existing, neither from the management nor
the technical point of view. We are now able to plan and to manage such
projects, to develop DSP based systems, to handle the corresponding
development tools, and have extended our PCB design knowledge towards
SMT technology.
The project was started in March 1998 with a planned duration of 9 months.
In the evaluation task of the prototype it became clear that more effort
had to be spent than planned before. The parametrisation of the system
making it reliable for all possible applications was more time-consuming
than expected. Other unforeseen businesses caused an additional delay,
resulting in a necessary total project extension of 3 months.
The total cost of the experiment to industrialisation was 77.3 K€ of
which 54 K€ was the FUSE investment and 20 K€ was for industrialisation.
With the anticipated sales increase and the resulting profitability
improvement a payback period of about one year and an ROI of 700% over
5 years of sales is expected.
