Various types of door, or, regional access control systems are known. One such system is disclosed in US Published Patent Application No. 2008/0086758 A1 published Apr. 10, 2008 and entitled, “Decentralized Access Control Framework.” The '758 application is assigned to the Assignee hereof and incorporated by reference.
While known systems have been effective for their intended purpose, open issues remain. For example, traditional access control systems can not detect if an unauthorized cardholder has ‘piggybacked’ into a secure area, and thus they do not increase the level of security in the area and sub-areas. Further, known intrusion systems can identify if a person is in a secure area, but they can not accurately identify whether the person is a valid cardholder. This problem may occur when an employee is working late, and the intrusion system is turned on while he/she is still in the building or region being monitored. Finally, if the intrusion system is set up to disarm when a valid card holder enters an area, then the level of security in that area is reduced.
In would be desirable to address the above noted issues so as to provide more effective security to a monitored region than is currently available. It would also be desirable to do so in a way such that existing systems might be upgradable.