Aurora Cannabis has created a diverse portfolio in both the consumer and medical markets which has increased access to safe, high-quality cannabis worldwide. As Aurora’s grow facilities were developing, their need for reliable physical security over grow operations became paramount. Vandalism, theft of plants, and destruction of property can severely impact business operations.

Given the unique characteristics that are part of cannabis growing operations – large applications, often outdoors, where lighting and conditions are difficult to control – Aurora turned to Sightlogix to help solve their cannabis security challenges.

Adhering to strict regulations

As Aurora was beginning to set-up for an outdoor grow site, they needed to address their perimeter security as part of their licensing requirements. Health Canada, the governing Canadian body for cannabis, has many regulations for grow sites. According to one of their requirements, cannabis sites must be able to detect and verify human intrusion in all weather conditions with 100% coverage, 100% of the time. In addition, as part of compliance, all alarms are required to be catalogued and investigated, so maintaining low false alarms was key to all stakeholders.

The Sightlogix team was able to work directly with Aurora’s Sr. Director of Corporate Security, Mike Soberal, along with Aurora’s integrator to understand their requirements. Together, they developed a complete solution for perimeter security to protect the site from intruders and meet Health Canada’s requirements.

Utilising the Sightlogix Sightsurvey tool, they were able to create a detailed perimeter design that selected the optimal lenses, displayed intruder detection ranges along the perimeter, ensured the absence of blind spots, and created a blanket of automated protection across the site.

Enhanced detection in difficult conditions

The Sightlogix cameras selected for the Aurora application were Sightsensor HDs, smart detection cameras that include both thermal and visible imagers. They also employ Dual-Sensor Analytics (DSA) to enhance detection performance under difficult outdoor conditions. DSA detects targets from both thermal and visible sensors simultaneously, allowing Aurora to reduce nuisance alerts and increase intruder detection reliability.

Once the SightLogix system was installed, Aurora was able to meet all their outdoor intrusion detection requirements at the grow site. “After an extensive search for a solution for our unique perimeter security needs,” said Mike Soberal, Aurora’s Senior Director, Corporate Security, “Sightlogix not only provided an all-in-one resolution, it came at a cost-effective price and the support during implementation and since has been second to none.”