All five of the top United States defense companies recently submitted bids in a competition to construct and deploy a series of fixed surveillance towers integrated with command and control systems along select portions of the nation’s southwest border with Mexico to help stem the flow of illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the United States.
Boeing [BA], General Dynamics [GD], Lockheed Martin [LMT], Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Raytheon [RTN] this week all confirmed that they are bidding for Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT) program, which would consist of fixed towers equipped with ground-based radar, day/night cameras, and related communications systems all integrated via command and control software at various Border Patrol stations.
The IFT program was borne early last year from the cancellation by the Department of Homeland Security of the former Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet) program, which was developed and deployed by Boeing in two border sectors accounting for more than 50 miles of border in Arizona. SBInet is currently operating with the Border Patrol, and successfully industry and government officials have said but DHS pulled the plug on the program after development took longer and was more costly than expected.
Now CBP wants a non-developmental, off-the-shelf solution based on an adaptable, open architecture so that sensors from different companies can be integrated over time to help CBP meet changing mission needs and requirements without being sucked into an expensive, no-end-in-sight development effort, and locked into a proprietary solution with single company.
Under the current schedule CBP expects to select a winner for the IFT program in December.
All of the companies interviewed said their systems are based on field proven technologies, much of which has been used with the Defense Department, international customers, and in some cases commercial and civil customers.
Lockheed Martin’s proposed solution is based on “proven” non-developmental and commercial-based technologies and meets CBP’s requirements but doesn’t go beyond the stated mission needs so that it will “drive additional, unnecessary cost,” Lee Hall, director of Homeland Security Solutions for Lockheed Martin’s Information Systems & Global Solutions Civil business, said recently.
Hall declined to discuss specifics of the company’s solution but said it is founded on work it has done for several decades in ground-based wide area surveillance solutions for various customers. He did say that Lockheed Martin will be supplying the processing and display technology at the backend that is similar to ground-based wide area surveillance systems the company has developed for domestic and international customers, including the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command and Albania.
Lockheed Martin has been operating its proposed solution with a local sheriff’s department in the southwest border environment since last November to get feedback on its operations and to generate performance data, Hall said. The system has been working “without issue” and has demonstrated its ability to detect and track items of interest, including “persons walking through an open area” so that through coordination with other “authorities” in the area has resulted in apprehensions of individuals, he said.
Raytheon has also been testing its solution in a southwest border environment, T.J. Kennedy, director of Public Safety and Security for the company’s Network Centric Systems segment, said. Raytheon has worked with retired federal and local law enforcement officials who are “knowledgeable” about the southwest border on the design, deployment and testing of the company’s proposed solution, Kennedy said.
The core technology in Raytheon’s solution is its ClearView command and control system, which is currently in use to protect critical infrastructure in a major metropolitan area on the East Coast, Kennedy said. ClearView is an off-the-shelf system that integrates multiple sensors and sensor types and related communications to create a common operating picture.
Raytheon, like its peers, has years of experience in developing and providing ground-based wide area surveillance solutions and related command and control for a range of customers, both military and civilian.
GD said its C4 Systems division is teaming with the U.S.-based division of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. on its IFT bid. For the U.S. Coast Guard, GD developed, and is currently deploying, the Rescue 21 command, control and communications system, which includes a series of towers along the nation’s coastal regions, certain inland waterways, and territories to assist mariners in distress.
Rescue 21 currently covers nearly 42,000 miles of coastline.
EADS’ Cassidian business, which will also be working with GD, has provided land border, maritime and critical infrastructure protection solutions to customers in Europe and the Middle East, with over 1,000 sensors installed on various surveillance towers, a GD spokeswoman said. In addition, EADS has trained over 10,000 agents on how to use the command and control interface that is integrated with its protection solutions.
Boeing declined to discuss details related to its bid. In addition to SBInet, the company has also developed critical infrastructure security solutions for a number of customers, including an extensive sensor integration effort along a stretch of the Delaware River near Philadelphia International Airport that includes bridges, oil and chemical refineries and other key economic assets.
For the Delaware River deployment, Boeing’s Visual Security Operations Console is a key command and control security management technology that is also a component of its IFT bid.
A Northrop Grumman spokeswoman said her company’s bid is also based on solutions used by the Defense Department, international defense customers and commercial customers. She said the solution features open architectures that will adapt well to CBP’s mission and that “our robust command and control integrated with proven off-the-shelf sensors and communications is ideally suited for wide area persistent surveillance and tracking required by CBP.”
As part of the IFT competition, CBP said it plans to do live demonstrations of the competing solutions as part of the source selection. That would be a lesson learned from the SBInet program, which had no competitive “fly-off.”
CBP hasn’t discussed the potential value of an extensive IFT deployment, but the SBInet program was estimated to be worth between $2 billion to $10 billion depending on who was doing the talking. For SBInet, CBP spent about $1 billion with Boeing.
Britain’s BAE Systems said in an interview that it did not bid for IFT.