PoE managed switches at new Europa-Park Stadium

During the construction of the new Europa-Park Stadium, the coaching staff for Sport-Club Freiburg requested the ability to record players during training and live games for in-depth video analysis. This would be a powerful tool in their approach to improving team and individual performance techniques. Franz Schätzle, ICT Lead at Sport-Club Freiburg e.V., would have a six-week window during a break to install a state-of-the-art on-pitch video system to meet their requirements. This six-week window also coincided with the global supply chain crisis.

To ensure every angle of play was captured, cameras were installed on eight poles at 50m intervals around the perimeter of the football pitch. Three PTZ cameras were mounted on each pole with the relevant networking equipment protected inside stainless steel enclosures.

As Schätzle commented: “We needed rugged PoE Switches capable of powering the cameras and reliably transferring the recorded footage to the core network central analysis system. As the switches would be installed within pole-mounted enclosures, they had to be very small and capable of withstanding temperature fluctuations without malfunctioning.”

Additionally, a series of WAPs were installed at the side of the pitch, in press conference rooms, and offices to enable a WLAN network for all employees throughout the stadium. Like the camera application, PoE switches were needed to power the WAPs and provide reliable network access to the staff as they roamed.

“Most people are not aware of the high bar IT equipment needs to meet in a stadium environment," said Schätzle. "Equipment at the edge of the network is regularly exposed to conditions you would find in industrial settings and we factor that into our product selection.”

Although the global supply chain crisis challenged Schätzle while sourcing all of the equipment, Perle was the only vendor that could deliver a PoE Switch that met the stringent specifications on time.

Packed with features inside a tiny DIN Rail enclosure, the IDS-710HP is a fully compliant IEEE802.3bt PoE Switch. This 10-port Gigabit Switch comes with eight 100W PoE copper ports, and two SFP slots supporting 1G fiber, 2.5G fiber, or 10/100/1,000Mbps copper. The operating temperature range of −40°C to 70°C would ensure consistent reliability in the exposed stadium environment. Plus, a PD power reset from the IDS-710HP will remotely reboot attached cameras and WAPs when necessary.

The IDS-710 Managed Switches have enterprise-grade features for environments where extensive security, QoS, and network integration functionality are required. They can be managed with an IPv6 address and support a comprehensive set of management functions including MRP (IEC62439-2), Ring protocol for <10ms recovery time, PTP, PROFINET, Modbus TCP, management VLAN, management access lists, password strength requirements, RMON, N:1 port mirroring, and local alert log.

According to Schätzle, “The Perle IDS Industrial Switches comfortably meet the high availability, high reliability, high quality, and high-performance standards required for the products we use.”