Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in early July declared a relatively new border security surveillance tower system a program of record, a key program milestone demonstrating the agency’s interest in the technology and moving it from a research and development effort to a line item in the budget.
The artificial intelligence-based Autonomous Surveillance Towers (ASTs), supplied by California-based Anduril Industries, are quickly relocatable and provide day and night surveillance coverage along portions of the southwest border.
Currently, CBP has 60 ASTs and plans to procure another 140 combined in fiscal years 2021 and 2022.
The ASTs are used in remote and rural locations and are equipped with radar and camera to autonomously scan, detect and identity items of interest using algorithms to analyze the imagery. The system automatically alerts Border Patrol agents based on the analysis, leaving them with the ability to make a final determination on what the item is and if it poses a threat.
“These towers give agents in the field a significant leg up against criminal networks that facilitate illegal cross-border activity,” says Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott. “The more our agents know about what they encounter in the field, the more safely and effectively they can respond.”
CBP began to evaluate the ASTs, then called Innovative Towers, in 2018 in the San Diego Border Patrol Sector. The towers operate off the grid relying 100 percent on renewable energy and can be relocated within two hours, giving the Border Patrol flexibility to adapt to changing mission needs.
The ASTs are augmenting current border security assets such as the wall and are intended to complement existing surveillance such as the Remote Video Surveillance System, Integrated Fixed Towers, mobile surveillance systems and small drones, CBP said.
Funding for border security technology has largely been put on the back burner by the Trump administration, which so far has favored spending billions of dollars erecting physical barriers on the southern border.
First Cut at FY ’21 DHS Bill
Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee panel that oversees spending for CBP this week approved their version of a spending bill for fiscal year 2021 that would zero the administration’s $2 billion request for the border wall and increase funding for border security technology by $531.5 million. Of the increase, $190 million would be put toward border security technology that would likely include programs such as the AST.
The full committee next will take up the FY ’21 spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Homeland Security subcommittee’s approval of the spending plan passed by voice vote along partisan lines as Republicans object to the gutting of funds for the wall and proposed cuts for immigration enforcement and removal operations.
Republicans, who control the Senate, are unlikely to approve complete elimination of the border wall funding in FY ’21.
The plus up for border security technology also includes and $190 million for non-intrusive imaging (NII) technology, $86 million for three Multirole Enforcement Aircraft (MEA), $45 million for innovative technology, and $20 million for port of entry technology, according to a summary of the bill. The overall recommendation by the committee for border security technology is $687.5 million, which includes $642.5 million in the procurement account and $45 million for operations and support.
The summary doesn’t provide line item detail but the additional funding for NII equipment comes on top of around $600 million that Congress previously appropriated for Customs and Border Protection to significantly expand scanning of cargo and vehicles entering the U.S. at ports of entry. The agency plans to purchase the NII equipment over the next few years.
Sierra Nevada Corp. builds the MEAs for CBP.
The HAC HS bill would also rescind nearly $1.4 billion from CBP’s FY ’20 procurement account due to President Donald Trump’s reprogramming of Defense Department funding for the border wall.