News Detail

At the HRM Expo 2009 in Cologne, Germany, from 22-29 September 2009, PCS will showcase its current range of time & attendance terminals for personnel time management and access control components.
The company’s presentation at this important European HRM expo and convention will focus on RFID and biometric access readers in a new iF award winning design, mechatronical access solutions as well as the second version of its highly secure INTUS PS palm vein authentication system based on the PalmSecure technology.

INTUS 600 and INTUS 600FP – the two new PCS readers with award-winning design.
With their blue MagicEye and anthracite finish in a silver frame the INTUS 600 RFID access reader and the INTUS 600FP fingerprint reader perfectly match the design line that distinguishes all of the INTUS 5300 terminal family. And just as the INTUS 5300 terminal before them, the two new access readers now have won the iF award for outstanding product design and have also been nominated for the 2010 Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany.

INTUS 600 RFID reader with a new and faster reading and writing function.
Technically, the new INTUS 600 reader differs from its predecessor model mainly in its support of the new reading methods Mifare DESFire EV1 and Legic advant. Both reading methods provide maximum possible security in conjunction with RFID access cards. They also offer a “writing function”, i.e. every day, new authorizations can be written to the card for the efficient and fast integration of “offline doors” with online systems (NetworkOnCard). In addition, the readers are downward compatible with the previously used Mifare Classic and Legic prime reading methods. This means that customers can keep on using existing access cards in migration projects. The MagicEye signals whether an access card is valid or invalid. Optionally, the INTUS 600 can also be equipped with a backlit keypad.

INTUS 600FP – compact fingerprint reader.
Biometric systems are increasingly used for employee identification instead of ID cards or PIN codes. Consequently, PCS has introduced its award-winning compact INTUS 600FP fingerprint reader.

It offers all the features of the INTUS 600 model plus a powerful fingerprint sensor. With a resolution of 256x360 pixels and over 500 dpi, the capacitive sensor meets even the strict requirements according to HSPD-12 (Homeland Security Presidential Directive). Moreover, it is certified according to FIPS-201 (Federal Information Processing Standard) and conforms to the NIST SP 800-76 standard (National Institute of Standards and Technology). It is very robust and resists electrostatic discharge up to 15 kV. For identification purposes, the INTUS 600FP stores up to 4,000 templates. This means that a special function can be assigned to each finger of a person. such as “administrator finger”, “threat finger”, “enrollment finger” or “standard access finger”. Many fingerprint readers fail to identify persons with very large or small fingers or worn fingertips. For such issues, the INTUS 600FP allows storing up to 10 templates for each finger which significantly improves the accuracy of identification.

A single employee card for the entire building – online and offline time & attendance recording and access control with “NetworkOnCard”.
The integration of mechatronical stand-alone door terminals with an online system is increasingly important in advanced time & attendance recording and access control systems. Usually there is the requirement to use a single employee card for everything. If, for example, individual internal doors are outside of the local network or cannot be incorporated into the company’s networked time management and security concept for structural reasons, the integration of high-speed stand-alone access control using door terminals suggests itself. Using advanced RFID technologies, the INTUS 5300 and INTUS 3450 time & attendance terminals and the two new INTUS 600 and INTU 600FP readers write daily updated access authorizations to an employee or visitor card which are then processed via “NetworkOnCard” by the door terminals. Equipped with these cards, users can move throughout the entire access zone under online and offline control. The access authorization may be cleared as soon as the user leaves the building. If a card is lost, no unauthorized person will be able to enter the building.

This significantly increases the security of the overall system.
Authorizations are co-managed in the online system, with the authorization terminal writing the authorization onto the same card also used for the online system. This reduces the administrative effort and drives down the costs.

Palm vein recognition – second take: more informative and more powerful.
Just in time for the HRM Expo 2009, PCS is rolling out version 2 of its INTUS PS palm vein recognition system for high-security access control. The INTUS PS reader now has a display that is capable of representing more than 200 colors instead of just three. This not only allows much more detailed status indications, but also offers new options for more convenient user guidance. The RS232 interface previously used for the connection to the controller has been replaced by USB interfaces. Combined with an extension option, this made it possible to increase the distance between reader and controller from 5 m to 100 m. Mifare DESFire EV1 readers are used as additional RFID readers.

Twice the performance with reduced energy consumption.
The new INTUS PS Controller is powered by an Intel Atom processor with 1.6 MHz. This allowed doubling the performance of the new system while reducing its energy consumption by 33%.

A Wiegand interface is provided for connecting the INTUS PS Controller to an access controller of the higher-level access control system, while the download of master data is handled via an Ethernet interface.

The principle of palm vein recognition.
The INTUS PS palm vein recognition system is designed for access control in high security applications. Palm vein recognition is based on the absorption of infrared radiation (heat radiation) in venous blood. The sensor transmits infrared close range radiation towards the palms. The oxygen-reduced blood in the veins absorbs the infrared rays.
The PalmSecure sensor of the camera creates an image of the vein pattern and converts it to a template with a file size of approx. 0,8 kB used to identify the person. The PalmSecure sensor is certified by Germany’s National Information Security Authority BSI.

The palm vein authentication system combines the security of iris recognition with the convenience of a fingerprint reader and is very interesting for access control applications in high-security areas.

Partner solutions for powerful investment protection.
More than 100 highly competent software partners integrate PCS systems with a portfolio of solutions ranging from working time management, staff placement planning and a workflow-oriented staff management system to visitor management, a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) implementation and leading-edge card technologies. These include industry-specific and horizontal solutions based on the INTUS product family and generally characterized by the independence of the hardware and software components to ensure maximum investment protection.