When thousands of spectators pour into the stadium at the same time there must not be any hold-ups at the access control systems. In addition the planners and people in charge in Stuttgart had to face another challenge. Because to check that people are entitled to admittance, at all football World Cup games electronically controlled turnstiles with reading units to identify RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips on the tickets are being used. In order to ensure that this check runs smoothly at the stadium entrance the required data from the ticket system is encrypted and sent to the stadium's access control system.

Radio Frequency Identification

The RFID chip that is used to compare the access control information is the key to this data. As soon as the ticket holder has passed through the turnstiles this is recorded on the chip. At the same time the system marks each ticket so that it cannot be used twice.

The requirements of the regional capital, Stuttgart's, sports authority, which is the owner and operator of the stadium, were: Latest generation access control systems together with a highly available network that guarantees communication with the servers. Therefore, right from the first discussions with the responsible planners, Ebert Engineers from Leipzig, particular emphasis was placed on the network design. A scaled Ethernet network with maximum system stability was one of the requirements.

Modular Gigabit Ethernet Switches

They opted for the Power MICE gigabit Ethernet switch for the network components. This modular system consists of a switching unit with integral backplane and a 4 port gigabit media module, corresponding SFP fibre optic transceivers and various fast Ethernet media modules. In all up to 28 ports are available. Routing mechanisms and management redundancy functions also feature in this system.

"Power MICE" can therefore be used particularly in highly available data networks with a high level of data input and real time requirements. In this the switches comply with all current (industry) standards and are used in the Gottlieb Daimler Stadium both centrally in control cabinets and also locally in outdoor distribution boxes. The fan-free cooling system and a redundant 24 volt power supply contribute to the system's high level of operating reliability and stability.

As already mentioned, very great significance was placed on network availability. The familiar procedures were all put under the microscope and finally they opted for Hirschmann's HIPER ring.

High Availability through Ring Redundancy

With this network topology all the network components involved were combined into one ring. Actually a loop is not allowed with Ethernet as normally it would lead to the whole network breaking down. But the HIPER ring protocol deals with this problem by making the loop a physical one but not a logical one.

The so-called redundancy manager is responsible for this. This ensures that a connection works in standby mode. When a connection lead is cut off, the units involved send a link down signal to the redundancy manager which immediately switches on the standby cable. Apart from a rapid reconfiguration time – when the data network is disrupted the standby connection is switched on in less than 50 milliseconds - the HIPER ring structure design also enables the network to be set up at a reasonable cost.

Modern optical transmission systems

Finally the data network offers all the advantages of optical transmission systems. This includes both an extremely high level of protection against interference from all types of electromagnetic inductive, capacitive or galvanic interference as well as maximum transfer rates or bandwidths, a wide range, integral lightning protection and a clear design. In addition the network can be maintained and extended while it is still operating. Thus the required availability is always guaranteed.

Detailed switch information can be displayed via a standard web browser. The integral SNMP interface provides further central management functions that can be used perfectly by installing network management software such as HiVision/Industrial HiVision or by incorporating it into a display screen.

The demanding network design has been implemented perfectly and commissioned with active support from the Hirschmann Competence Centre so that the Gottlieb Daimler Stadium is perfectly equipped for the Football World Cup.
More about the FIFA World Cup 2006 .