Frequently Asked Questions

The entirety of this document is available from the RONIN "About" page by clicking on the RONIN logo in the top left corner of a running RONIN system.

2.1.1 Q: What do the new bollards look like?
A: The RONIN® Enterprise System (the “RONIN®”) RONIN® have a smooth elegant shape. There are LEDs on
the bollards to signal the state of the system. The Pulsed Induction (non-ferrous detector) is an add-on option
to the base (ferrous detection) system.

Figure 1: RONIN Enterprise concept

Figure 2: 36" gate, RONIN®  Enterprise gate, with a RONIN® 1.0 wired gate behind it. One side LEDs are lit only for illustration.

2.1.2 Q: What are the main distinguishing features of RONIN® Enterprise versus the
older RONIN® RTDS-xxxx system?
A: WebApp, new product design, wireless, no at-site computer required, bring-your-own-device via browser.
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2.1.3 Q: Do you still sell RONIN® 1.0?
A: No.
2.1.4 Q: Who are your existing customers?
A: We do not disclose names for security and business reasons. The RONIN® system may be also applicable to
military bases, mass transit, stadiums, schools, treasuries, data centers, office buildings, high security facilities,
retail, hotel lobby, religious institutions, banks, critical infrastructure plants, warehouses, distribution centers,
and mobile pop-up events such as marathons.
2.1.5 Q: How tall are the bollards?
A: Standard RONIN® system is 42 inches tall.
2.1.6 Q: Is The RONIN® system useable outdoors?
A: Yes
2.1.7 Q: Is The RONIN® system waterproof?
A: The RONIN® Enterprise system has been certified by a third party to the IP54 specification for resistance to
dust and water intrusion. More information can be found at http://www.dsmt.com/resources/ip-rating-chart/
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Figure 4: Single-gate view

Figure 5: Multi-gate view

3 Safety
3.1.1 Q: Do the systems emit radiation?
A: The magnetic (base) RONIN® system is completely passive, relying only on the magnetic fields present in the
environment such as the earth’s magnetic field. The Nonferrous metal / Pulsed Induction (NF/PI) option emits
a very low level of radio frequency. The RONIN® system does contain support for Wi-Fi 802.11ac, similar to
other consumer electronics.
3.1.2 Q: Do the systems involve high power / voltages?
A: There are no high voltages or currents needed. The RONIN® systemruns from a 24V DC power supply, or
(future) up to 48V if using a Power-Over-Ethernet (POE) solution.
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4 Cabling
4.1.1 Q: Please describe how the RONIN® system is cabled. Both Bollard to bollard,
and the bollard to customer equipment?
A: We have a few options. The default is all wireless, RONIN® does require cabling run for power (available
from 120V AC to 24V DC power supply, Included). In the future, we can recommend battery solutions based
upon run-time need, one per bollard. We offer a version in which there is a cable between the bollards as well.
4.1.2 Q: Is a battery option available for the portable system?
A: We do not provide a battery pack, but we can advise on using a battery, which is possible to acquire and
wire in. In the future, we plan to offer a battery and charger option.
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5 Cost
5.1.1 Q: What is the cost of a single RONIN® system?
A: Contact sales@missecurity.com for a custom quote.
5.1.2 Q: What is your support structure?
A: Contact sales@missecurity.com for more information.

6 General Security CONOPS
6.1.1 Q: Does Calibration require any special training to do correctly?
A: No, the Admin User clicks on “Calibrate”, waits approximately ninety seconds. RONIN® WebApp provides a
progress bar. The RONIN® system will not produce alerts while it is calibrating and will appear in “Trouble”
during this time.
6.1.2 Q: What is your (average) throughput rate? (physical throughput)
A: The original RONIN® 1.0 system has been evaluated by The National Center for Spectator Sports and
Stadium Security (NCS4) for throughput of a 36” gate. For more information see
https://missecurity.com/articles/ronin-lab-tested-by-ncs4/ . A full report is available from NCS4.
The NCS4 report finds that The RONIN® system is capable of a maximum throughput of 1020 patrons per hour,
and an average (mean) rate of 544 patrons/ hour. With wider gate widths and the new RONIN® Enterprise
system this should increase.
6.1.3 Q: After the RONIN® alarms upon a detected threat, what is the secondary
inspection you supply or recommend?
A: That’s a per-customer decision and we do not recommend specific procedures. We have seen customers
use wands, but we make no recommendation.
6.1.4 Q: What happens when multiple people walk through the gate simultaneously
(and there is an alert)?
A: The RONIN® system is designed to detect threats by gauging a disturbance in the magnetic field as a patron
passes through the gate. Multiple patrons or multiple threat items on a single patron will result in a single
alarm, and a captured image of the patron(s). In this case, all individuals seen in Detection Image are suspect
for further screening and should be asked to divest of any items found in secondary screening and the
patron(s) should then be asked to pass through the gates again single file until they perform a clean pass.
6.1.5 Q: What gate widths are supported?
A: 3 feet up to 5 ft, in half-foot increments. However, it is strongly recommended to install the gates at the 3’
width if Object Location feature is desired, and in cases to detect very small objects (smaller than pocket
knives).
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6.1.6 Q: When covering a wide area, do multiple gates have to be laid out in a
straight line?
A: The two bollards of each RONIN® gate must be pointed with their flat faces toward one another, within a
few degrees tolerance, so that the optical tripwire is aligned (creating a straight line 3-6’ wide for each gate).
When placing multiple RONIN® gates side by side, any shape can be formed with the line segments, such as a
bow shape or chevron, for aesthetics, or to funnel traffic.
6.1.7 Q: Are the gates directional or “omnidirectional”?
A: The RONIN® system detects objects and assesses Object Location no matter which direction a patron passes
through the gate. If a camera is used, it must be placed on one side of the gate, referred to as the camera side.
The camera side should be set to view patron traffic in the direction of most interest, to see faces in the alert
images, and the primary bollard must be on the right side of the camera field of view. In a future revision we
may include a camera-in-bollard option, which is omnidirectional for the intended patron flow direction.
6.1.8 Q: What sensitivity level is supported?
A: The sensitivity can be dialed up or down based on the type of objects the customer wishes to detect, the
number and type of nuisance alarms, and to a lesser extent the environment. For example, some customers
may wish to detect only handguns and larger threats. Other customers may want to detect small pocket
knives, and thus set the threshold very low. At this low setting The RONIN® system may also pick up some large
cell phones or non-threat items. This is a per-customer per-gate decision, based on the number of nuisance
alarms compared to threat objects detected. The nonferrous metals sensor option is separately tunable from
the base magnetic sensors (which detect only ferrous and ferromagnetic metals).
Q: How often do you update your weapon signatures?
A: RONIN® does not use weapon signatures. The Detection Threshold may be tuned by the admin user(s) to
balance Probability of Detection versus Nuisance Alarms based on the individual system and what items are
desirable to detect. For instance, a level of 200 might detect letter openers, and small pocket knives, if that’s
desirable, but may also detect car keys. If only gun detection is desired, the detection threshold can be set
higher to ignore the smaller items.
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7 Notifications / Concepts of Operation (CONOPS)
7.1.1 Q: Does RONIN® Enterprise push a text message when an alert happens?
A: Not in the initial production series. To get an alert, you need to be either physically nearby or logged into
the WebApp via computer, or mobile device. You may also use the third-party API to implement this yourself
with your own system(s) and software.
We may plan a text messaging and email feature for the next revision.
7.1.2 Q: Does your system send an email when an alert happens?
A: No. You could use the third-party API to implement this yourself with your own system.
We may implement text messaging and email feature for a future revision.
7.1.3 Q: What other systems do you integrate with?
A: The customer may integrate with external security systems physically that provide, or take as input, a drycontact alarm. We have a third-party software API that provides alerts to other software systems, given some
software work.
7.1.4 Q: What is the third-party API?
A: The third-party RONIN® API is a one-way, JSON-based software API available via TCP socket connection (or
websocket), provides time of event, type of event, threshold values, picture of event with object location
overlaid, tripwire count, pre-configured latitude, longitude, altitude, and gate ID. The API is unidirectional
(supplying alert information from RONIN® to third party). More information can be found in Appendix of the
RONIN® Enterprise User Manual
7.1.5 Q: Do you have to configure the LEDs and lights separately for each bollard?
A: A gate is a pair of bollards. If you customize the behavior of lights and LEDs, it does need to occur on a pergate basis (there is no mechanism to set the same behavior for every gate at once). However, we try to provide
a default setting which will work well in most indoor settings with moderate noise and lighting. For relays and
physical security system “dry-contact” inputs, they will likely be different for each gate based upon the
surrounding devices you want to use with RONIN® (“man-traps”, turnstiles, sirens, SMS, silent notification,
etc).
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7.1.6 Images and Storage
7.1.7 Q: Do you supply those images to facial recognition?
A: You will be able to use our third-party software API to get the images of the alerts. We do not provide a face
detection or facial recognition solution.
7.1.8 Q: How are the images and logs stored?
A: By default, images and logs are stored within the device. This is designed so that it’s accessible (e.g.
forensics department), but not too accessible (e.g. not anyone can take it out without using tools and
generating tamper alerts). However, if a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device is available, long term
storage of these items can be set to that device instead of resident on the RONIN® Enterprise System. The
customer is responsible for acquiring, ownership, support, and maintenance of NAS.
7.1.9 Q: What cameras does RONIN® support? What cameras is RONIN® compatible
with?
A: RONIN® supports IP-based cameras with an MJPEG or h.264 over http/https and with a standardized URL for
streaming. We recommend Axis cameras. The resolution and frame rate may need adjustment to account for
network bandwidth availability, desired latency, and usage. We have tested with Axis, and HikVision clones.
RONIN® may also be compatible with TP-Link, TrendNet, D-Link, Panasonic, and other major name brands of
affordable, standard-definition commercial-off-the-shelf IP cameras that support the mentioned protocols at a
well-known standardized URL. We recommend using a low resolution MJPEG such as 640x480 for slower or
congested networks such as VPN.
We may include a built-in camera or cameras in the next revision.
This is a useful website for discovering the streaming URI of various commercial-off-the-shelf cameras:
https://www.ispyconnect.com/camera/
7.1.10 Q: Can the RONIN® system Operate without a camera? Is a camera required?
A: RONIN® can operate without a camera, using a silhouette for Object Location Assessment.
7.1.11 Q: Is RONIN® compatible with a Video Management System (VMS)? Genetec?
Avigilon? Zoneminder? Milestone? DVTEL? iSpy? BlueIris? Etc
A: No. We may explore that in future. See above question about camera latency, because such a system
recording, distribution, or transcoding could introduce significant latency, which would make detection images
coming into the RONIN® gate in-actionable. (If threat perpetrator walks through the gate creating an alert, but
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the image is behind by two seconds, the perpetrator will not appear in the image or the threat object location
on the body could be significantly different from that body location in image).
7.1.12 Q: Is the video stream from the RONIN® camera available to other systems?
A: Most IP cameras including the Axis camera that RONIN® provides, can do this. However, take into
consideration degradation of framerate and stream performance based on the available bandwidth of the
customer network as well as information provided by the camera manufacturer about the model number total
number of connections and resolutions / frame rates supported. Splitting the video off in too many directions
could adversely affect the quality of the stream, including the portion going to the RONIN® system.
7.1.13 Q: Are there limitations to camera placement?
A: Yes, but only if you want Object Location enabled. For Object Location, the camera should be pointed no
more than 15 degrees of Pan-Angle away from Orthogonal to the gate. It should not be tilted up or down by
more than 15 degrees. The camera should not be “rolled” about the barrel axis by more than 1 degree. Finally,
the Field of View (FOV) should be set such that the gate occupies at least 50% of the total pixel area covered by
the camera. There is no hard limit set on what the software will accept in order to do Object Location feature,
but it will be easier to visually interpret the Object Location result if the camera meets these
recommendations.
7.1.14 Q: Does RONIN® support multiple cameras-per-gate?
A: Not simultaneously. If you have more than one available on the network, viewing the same RONIN® gate
(for example, a thermal imager along with DayTV) the admin user can swap between them by changing the
configured IP address of the camera within the RONIN® WebApp.
7.1.15 Q: Does RONIN® support multiple gates-per-camera?
Yes; if the camera is zoomed out far enough to show two RONIN® systems in the same image, you can use the
same camera to feed both RONIN® systems. Note that the image of the person in the gate will take up fewer
pixels, and will be harder to discern individuals, than the recommended setup of one camera with image
covering only a single gate using most of the field of view. Each RONIN® system will need to have a separate
Overlay set by the admin.
7.1.16 Q: Does RONIN® support zeroize (remove all information from the bollard)?
A: We keep all alerts and images on the bollard for forensics purposes (e.g. to be used in court or by police
investigators in case of physical incident). We are able to zeroize the information on special request (e.g.
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remanufacturing), but it is not available to the user from the WebApp. Any person with physical access to the
bollards, special knowledge, and the ability to deactivate, disassemble them using a security screwdriver will
also be able to zeroize them.
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8 Network and Cybersecurity
8.1.1 Q: How does the RONIN® system talk to our network?
A: We support Wifi (802.11 b/g/n/ac) and ethernet (802.3) networks. Getting the network to the camera and
bollard is the responsibility of the customer’s networking team, since every customer network is different. The
RONIN is able to operate on an air-gapped network.
8.1.2 Q: How does the RONIN® system work over a Wide Area network (WAN)?
A: The RONIN® uses a WebApp, so that any network that can support HTTP and HTTPS should support
connectivity with our system. This can include but is not limited to, Virtual Private Network (VPN), intranet,
LAN, port forwarding and discovery (UPnP), and other similar technologies. The customer network is the
responsibility of the customer IT/networking team.
8.1.3 Q: Please provide some installation (network) diagrams
Figure 6: Example of wireless RONIN® Enterprise system, using Wi-Fi 802.11ac (thick blue dotted line)
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Figure 7: Example of hard wired RONIN® system using 100BastT ethernet (thick blue line)
Figure 8: Connection of multiple RONIN® systems via wifi and ethernet, to a single customer network, some
without cameras
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8.1.4 Q: What are the (network) throughput and bandwidth requirements?
A: Recommended minimums at the end of this FAQ for a single user, single RONIN® system. Use
https://www.cctvcalculator.net/en/calculations/bandwidth-calculator/ as a guide for your specific
deployment, keeping in mind the number of simultaneous user sessions and the number and resolution of
cameras you plan to deploy.
8.1.5 Q: Do you write/own the code? Describe your software development lifecycle
with particular emphasis on software penetration testing,
A: Yes, we write and own the code. Software development lifecycle is Agile/Scrum with an internal release
cycle of about a month. Libraries and technologies used are based on Free Open Source Software (FOSS) and
uses Linux. We use continuous integration and test with static and vulnerability analysis. We have a 23 page
software security plan (SSP) (internal document) that we use for development and test and perform periodic
first-party “grey box” pen-testing. We use the MITRE CVE as well as npm vulnerabilities database. We expose
port 80 (HTTP) which can be hidden behind an HTTPS proxy (port 543).
8.1.6 Q: I’d like to understand remote monitoring and connectivity. Goes to
cyber/data security and controls in place.
A: Currently we have a WebApp which provides a web server endpoint to the Local Area Network (LAN) that
the embedded device (“The RONIN® system“) resides on. Logins are authenticated and along with user roles,
using OAuth. We may plan to add SMS and email which is customer configurable from the WebApp, but
requires a route to the internet. We have a JSON API available , which is one-way requiring an API key. To get
to the WebApp from outside your network, you would provide some pathway such as secure VPN, Intranet, or
port forwarding. The RONIN® system does not use UPNP or attempt to open any ports on other equipment.
8.1.7 Q: At installation for permanent use will you be connecting to an existing data
network?
A: The RONIN® system connects via Wifi (802.11a,b,g,ac,n) or Ethernet (100BaseTX/copper RJ-45 8P8C) to an
existing network, or connect directly to a single-gate system with either of those methods. This all depends on
where you want to access the RONIN® system from / how far you want to go with it and how many gates you
are interested in using simultaneously. The network can be air-gapped or not.
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8.1.8 Q: What is your data retention and availability policy?
A: All data produced on (such as images and alarm logs) and entered into the RONIN® system (such as
usernames), remains on the bollard, indefinitely, for forensic purposes. No user is able to permanently clear
information on the bollard from software, in order to prevent “insider threat” or coverup of operator
negligence when there is a serious security event. We may institute a rolling period of 90-days or similar, in the
future, to prevent running out of space on the device. It may be possible under special circumstances for a
trained service operator to erase or recover the data by special request of the customer. We also have a
feature to use customer owned Network Attached Storage (NAS), but that device is customer provided and
owned, and not controlled by the RONIN® system. So in the case of NAS, the customer is in control of data
retention and availability. We make no guarantees on data availability in the case of destructive activity such
as but not limited to fire, water damage, storage corruption, electric shock, physical shock, etc, to the RONIN®
system.
8.1.9 Q: What version of linux does RONIN® use?
A: Currently (on 06/30/2022) we use:
> uname -r
5.4.91-5.2.0 This will change based on linux kernel availability, and Critical security vulnerabilities (for
instance HeartBleed was considered “Critical”), and subject to support contract. We typically stay up to date
with Yocto / Open Embedded and Toradex for our Linux build, within a 30-day period.
8.1.10 Q: What distribution of Linux does RONIN® use (e.g. RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu)?
A: We are an embedded system and therefore do not run a standard desktop or server distribution of Linux.
We build our own distribution using the Yocto project build system and the latest source code available
which is compatible with our hardware.
8.1.11 Q: How do the bollards communicate between one another? How secure is
communication between the bollards?
A: For wireless (bollard-to-bollard) RONIN® “2-board” option, an 802.11ac 5Ghz minimal power network exists
between the bollards, using a strong random WPA2-AES password that is unique for each RONIN® system. The
network runs at low power possible since the bollards will be placed maximum of 6’ apart from one another,
they should always be able to communicate wirelessly. The password is not subject to dictionary attack, has
3,226,266,762,397,899,816,960 combinations, and a conservative estimate for a single 1080TI GPU to brute
force in 2021 (200 kh/s) is 511521239 years. Clusters of GPUs can be built to divide this time, but currently the
capital cost of a single 1080TI is $1500 making this approach cost prohibitive (divide time by the number of
GPUs). If any major security issue is discovered and a fix is available with WPA2-AES, we will create the
appropriate software updates to mitigate the security flaw in future versions of RONIN.
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In the future, we may offer wired options between the bollards to facilitate specific customer needs. Note that
the only data passed on this network between these two bollards is the raw sensor data, the commands to
turn on the LEDs and sound, which is itself encrypted additionally in software using AES-128.
8.1.12 Q: Are there any servers involved? Are there any additional appliances
required on the customer network?
A: The RONIN® system uses a Web Server (software) which runs on the embedded system (bollard). This is part
of our firmware load which can be upgraded as needed using the firmware upgrade Admin feature built into
the Web App. No additional hardware is needed, but we do not provide a Network Attached Storage (NAS) if
the customer wishes to use that optional feature for logging alerts. By default, alerts and alert images are
logged only to the bollard.
8.1.13 Q: Does RONIN® use (UDP) unicast? Does RONIN® use (UDP) multicast?
A: No, communication to the bollard via the WebApp is via HTTP/TCP/WebSockets to load the WebApp. It’s
request/response. RONIN® does not use UDP.
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9 Minimum system specs
These are the platforms we test with.
9.1.1 Notional WebApp test platform #1
HP Probook
Intel Core i5-8250u CPU, 1.60 Ghz, 4 real cores, 8 total cores
8 Gigabyte (GB) RAM
200 GB free hard drive space
Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit
Microsoft Edge Browser 44.17763.831.0
Google Chrome 75.0
Firefox 66
1080 resolution display
9.1.2 Notional WebApp test platform #2
Android phone, 9th generation or later
Android OS: Version 11 or later
2.4 GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425
500 MB available storage space
2 GB RAM total
screen dimensions: 5.7" x 2.7"
screen resolution: 1440 x 720
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9.1.3 Notional
WebApp
test
platform #3
MacBook M1 (2021) Laptop
Intel i5-3210M Core 2.5GHz
4GB RAM
200 GB free hard drive
space
MacOS
Safari browser
Google Chrome 75.0
Firefox 66
9.1.4 Notional WebApp test platform #4
Apple iPhone X (10)
OS: iOS 14.
CPU: Apple A12 Bionic.
500 MB available storage space
3 GB RAM total
Dimensions: 158.4 x 78.1mm
Resolution: 1080 x 1920.
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10 Object Location (Assessment) performance
10.1.1 Q: Can the RONIN® system detect without Locating the threat objects?
A: Yes, absolutely. The RONIN® system is capable of detecting threat objects with a higher level of confidence
than it is able to Locate the object(s) within the gate. In fact, the Object Location can be turned off when
operating gates wider than the standard 36”, or to prevent encouraging a level of operator complacency.
10.1.2 Q: Is the Object Location guaranteed?
A: No, the RONIN® system in laboratory tests locates a test object within the gate about 82% of the time,
within 6 inches, when using a three-foot wide gate, for a specific type of test object. We recommend that you
start in the location reported by RONIN® and work your way outward during secondary screening and search.
We are constantly making improvements to our algorithms and performing laboratory testing with different
test objects and gate widths. Remember that if The RONIN® system produces an alert (Object Detection), the
likelihood that it detected something is very high, even if the location is not correct.
Object location accuracy will decrease as the gate becomes wider. Multiple object location is not supported
(The RONIN® system does not know a-priori when multiple threat or metal objects are in the gate).However,
with properly set Threshold and Gate Width, The RONIN® system will detect, producing an alert even in these
circumstances of decreased Object Location.
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Figure 9: A laboratory analysis of our Object Location performance when locating a D34-N52 magnetic test
object (roughly similar to Glock 17 signature), on a controlled test cart with 1000 passes through the gate
and 10 positions on the simulated body.
BETA-01 D34 10-positions Euclidean distance (ft)
2021-01-25
Less than 0.5 0.5-1 1-1.5 1.5-2 2+