Real World solutions
Published: ASIA
SINGAPORE: The Singapore Resorts World Sentosa development is the latest in a series of integrated digital audio and control installations making extensive use of the Bosch Praesideo system, as Richard Lawn discovers
Resorts World Sentosa is Singapore’s first integrated resort. Located on the island of Sentosa, its key attractions include a 1,500-sq-m casino and the region’s first Universal Studios theme park, as well as the world’s largest oceanarium. The S$6.59bn resort was developed by Genting Group and offers six hotels with 1,800 rooms, occupies 49 hectares, and when fully operational will employ more than 10,000 people directly. Supported by restaurants, shops, boutiques and spa by ESPA, the resort is expected to attract around 13m visitors in its first year alone.
Responsibility for designing and commissioning an integrated Public Address and Background Music System – which also serves as the resort’s emergency voice communication and evacuation system– fell to InfoCom & Security Systems (ICSS) after stringent evaluation. ICSS is well experienced in implementing large public address systems, having earlier handled large installations at Changi International Airport, VivoCity and Biopolistc.
ICSS, as a certified Bosch systems integrator, chose the Bosch Praesideo Digital Public Address System as the best suited to providing integrated and reliable announcements over such a large area. Using a distributed network of controllers connected via a fibre-optic cable infrastructure, processing and transmission of audio and control signals take place in the digital domain, eliminating hum, noise and crosstalk and allowing supervision and management from a computer.
Praesideo uses a decentralised network configuration rather than having all system elements connected to a central controller, allowing system elements to be freely added as required. The flexibility of the system’s architecture allows equipment such as power amplifiers to be located nearer to the loudspeakers as opposed to installing them all in a centralised Fire Command Centre (FCC). ICSS engineers minimised cable runs of the 100V lines by locating network controllers and amplifiers in seven different control rooms – the longest cable run between an amplifier and the first speaker is 500m.
ICSS managing director, Ivy Lee (who was also a member of the Standards Committee defining the Code of Practice for emergency evacuation systems), said: ‘The Bosch Praesideo PA System is in full compliance to the Singapore Standards CP25 and it provides a reliable and integrated PA System, enhancing the safety of the large number of visitors to the resort.’
The FCC is located in a separate windowless building at the rear of the Hard Rock Hotel. From here, 54 fire alarm signals stored in the main server are interfaced to rack mounted CobraNet interfaces and run off an uninterruptible power supply. The CobraNet interfaces are linked to the seven control rooms serving the entire resort on a local area network. There are many call stations from where paging announcements can be made, overriding the various background music systems. The Praesideo LBB 4430/00 call stations allow press-to-talk operation, have built in loudspeakers for monitoring, while the operator can configure a PC screen menu and access the network remotely.
Each hotel and outlet plays its own licensed music programme, but the voice evacuation system can automatically override all of them. Additional music channels are added to the system via the Praesideo audio expanders; different music is selectable at different locations, depending on the required mood and ambience.
The reliability of the system was another key factor in its selection. A redundant loop prevents disruption of operations from a single break in the fibre-optic cable, and automatic switching to spare elements in the system is also possible should equipment malfunction. The network controller monitors the status of all units in the system and reports status changes to the maintenance engineers, whose monitoring extends from the call station microphone to the loudspeakers. The fibre-optic network not only offers reliability and freedom from interference, but it also represents considerable savings in installation time and engineering costs. ICSS will have installed over 12,000 speakers in total including 500 horn speakers in the underground car parks when the project is completed. Any saving in time that can be achieved are precious, especially when financial penalties loom on extremely tight deadlines. Furthermore, the system can be expanded for the resort’s future requirements, such as the construction of new hotels or attractions.
The NCO network control units located in the FCC each route up to 28 simultaneous audio channels, while providing system power and control in addition to reporting faults. A total of 20 units are interlinked between the FCC and the various racks in the control rooms, with audio inputs including announcements from call stations, background music and local audio sources. The signal is then fed through Praesideo LBB 4404/00 CobraNet interfaces, which offer four inputs and four outputs, together with eight supervised control inputs and five control outputs plus a redundant network connection. As such these can simultaneously interface up to 28 digital audio channels from CobraNet into an audio system and up to 24 audio channels from an audio system into a CobraNet network. Call Stations and background music (BGM) sources are routed to CobraNet channels, while digital audio data is directly converted between an audio system and CobraNet using no other audio processing. At Resort World Sentosa, the audio channels are routed between the units located in the FCC and other CobraNet interfaces in the seven control rooms, for which a master PC in the FCC has access to control the network.
From the CobraNet interfaces, the signal is fed to a total of 211 Bosch 500W amplifiers in the seven control rooms. In total, 17 LBB 4421 (single-channel), 77 LBB 4422 (two-channel), 71 LBB 4424 (four-channel) and 46 LBB 4428 (eight-channel) amplifiers have been installed across the resort. Each LBB amplifier provides digital audio processing and adjustable delay per channel, line monitoring and spare amplifier switching, ambient microphone connections for output level adjustments, control inputs and programmable output relays.
The total audio power of up to 105KW is delivered with better than 90 per cent efficiency by Bosch class-D amplifiers. This gives considerable savings in consumption of electricity and significantly reduces the amount of heat that would have been produced by conventional amplifiers.
The bulk of the loudspeakers are fire retardant and flush mounted 6W LHM 0627 and 24W LBC 3099/31 dual-cone ceiling speakers offering a very wide dispersion angle, because of which fewer units have been installed to cover the various zones. Low smoke zero halogen 2.5/ 1.5mm sq cabling, conforming to safety standards, was installed throughout the resort. Each ceiling speaker is supplied with a 100V matching transformer with taps on the primary winding for full-power, half-power, and quarter-power output.
The boutiques and branded retail outlets along the Casino Gallery required ‘speaker enhancements’, with increased levels of power handling in order to cut through the higher ambient noise created by crowds in a confined, reverberant environment, or those areas with high ceilings. As a result, ICSS opted to install Electro-Voice 309 8-inch coaxial loudspeakers along these corridors and in the retail units. Similarly, the entrance to the Festive Walk & Bull Ring is equipped with column speakers, providing a greater degree of directivity.
Heading the team, ICSS senior project manager Lim Poh Heng reflects on developments since arriving on site: ‘The pace of this project has been extremely rapid. The designs were constantly changing and as such we had to modify the speaker locations as the new designs were handed to us. It was often a challenge to find the architectural drawings and of course we were reporting to several main contractors. The speed of the project, as was inevitable, picked up pace towards the end, with the main contractors putting in more manpower on site, and ICSS had to keep up with each of the main contractors.
The benefits of the fibre-optic Praesideo system are many and varied, with crosstalk and interference eliminated. Multiple, simultaneous audio channels can be accessed, configured and monitored directly as a local area network via a PC. Although cost savings were not a primary consideration for such a high-profile project where system failure cannot be tolerated – reduced installation costs were, nonetheless, welcome. The modular and digital design of Praesideo enables a basic system to be installed and be functional; with the possibility of expanding the system without disturbing the initial system as the resort expands. It is possible to add more music channels, announcement microphones, speakers, etc as and when required.
In this resort, four of the main contract developments have been completed; and another two will be constructed in a year’s time. All the expansion will be done seamlessly without disturbing a busy, vibrant and running resort.