Quick Start Guide

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6 Node Deployment Guide

This section presents many tips and pointers regarding the physical deployment of the ARGUS

GUARDIAN nodes. As the system is based on RF propagation, it is sometimes difficult to always

determine if and how well a given link will work prior to deployment. The following guidelines will help

installers to effectively deploy the ARGUS GUARDIAN system. With a little experience, installers will

develop an intuitive sense of what deployment strategy will be effective in a given situation.

1) We recommend that you give a little thought to deployment strategy prior to beginning placing

nodes. Try to position each node so that it will have the best exposure to adjacent nodes in the

fence. When it makes sense for the deployment, try to also have single nodes monitor several

links simultaneously – there is no performance penalty for doing this. For example, see figure

38, which shows 2 nodes participating in three links each (the blue dotted lines represent all

possible links, whereas the yellow links represent the active links).

Figure 32: Example deployment with nodes 118 and 121 participating in 3 links each

2) The best link performance will be achieved when two nodes have line-of-sight (LOS) and are at a

maximum distance of 200 feet in fairly open areas, or 100 feet with nearby buildings. If

deploying the system indoors, the maximum node-to-node distance is reduced further, perhaps

down to 10 or 20 feet (this depends very much on the composition of the structure and nearby

reflective materials).

3) For detecting walking humans, the nodes should be mounted such that the antennas are vertical

and are located at about hip/waist height (~3-4 ft). If detecting crawling humans is required,

position the nodes slightly lower (~2-3 ft) and spaced no farther apart than 100 ft.