The Civil Defense, established in 1976, currently has 23 Civil Defense stations within Dubai and has a control room that monitors more than 54,000 commercial buildings.
When we were first approached by the Dubai Civil Defense back in 2014, we thought it would be another control room with conventional large display technology. However, soon after, we realised that the client was looking for an unconventional display solution, requesting an LED Large Display. While LED technology existed for decades, implementing it for a large control display was unordinary due to the limited resolution available and the high ownership costs.
When Barco first introduced a high-resolution indoor LED display in Q4 2014, our client was excited to explore the possibilities of utilising this technology in their upcoming control room. At the time, Dubai Civil Defense became a pioneer by choosing Barco’s LED video wall technology for control room applications. When the client visited Barco facilities to inspect the LED technology, they confirmed that the high resolution, image quality and competitive offer exceeded their expectations. It also offers outstanding capabilities of reducing the light output to below 20% without losing image quality and colours, unlike any other manufacturer.
It became clear to the client that what they were searching for perfectly matched Barco’s offering. They went ahead and placed the order with Intertech for their (Dimensions: 14.4m Width – 3.6m Height – 52 Square Meter – 13.2million Pixels Resolution) Video Wall. In addition, they also selected the world-class console operator manufacturer Evans for providing technical furniture for 32 operators.
Moving forward with the project implementation, we faced a few technical challenges. The most challenging requirement of the installation site was the floor load, which was prevented the video wall from having a floor mount structure. Working closely with the client’s consultant and other relevant specialised contractors, that challenge was overcome by creating one of the world’s largest wall mount steel structures. The other challenge was to create a pixel-to-pixel mapping of 13.2 million pixels to produce the highest image quality.
Intertech and Barco are proud of the project implementation which met with the client’s expectation having the latest technology display for the control room. Today, it has been 5 years that this video wall has been operating for 24/7 with a outstanding reliability and image quality.
