By Calvin Biesecker
The first 50 kilometers of Jordan’s new integrated border security system along the country’s northern border with Syria is operational and work is underway to extend coverage to another stretch of border, according to officials with DRS Technologies, the company overseeing the program.
The initial phase of the border security project includes a combination of Distant Sentry 12 fixed towers and four mobile towers each equipped with a multi-sensor package and communications equipment that is networked with a command and control center manned by Jordanian armed forces. The current sensor package includes France’s Thales SQUIRE ground surveillance radar, which DRS licenses the manufacturing from Thales’ Netherlands business unit, and a FLIR Systems Corp. [FLIR] RANGER III thermal imaging and daylight camera.
The mobile systems are mounted on Humvees, which are integrated with telescoping masts to hang the sensors on.
The Jordan Border Security Program basically is replacing Jordanian military forces that patrol the border and use equipment such as binoculars to conduct surveillance, Alan Dietrich, president of DRS’ C3 and Aviation Division, told reporters on Monday at the annual Association of the United States Army conference. DRS is a subsidiary of Italy’s Finmeccanica.
DRS won the JBSP contract in February 2008 (Defense Daily, May 20, 2008). Since then, it has been a 17-month systems engineering and integrated parallel manufacturing effort to attain Initial Operational Capability for Phase One of the JBSP, Dietrich said.
DRS, along with its partner on the situational awareness software 21st Century Systems, has also supplied a Common Operating Picture for the command and control center, and trained about 100 Jordanian military personnel on the use of the JBSP. Various unattended ground sensors, including acoustic and seismic, are also part of the integrated border security system.
The communications system is microwave-based and signals can hop between the towers, Dietrich said.
DRS conducted a successful end-to-end test of the system in late July. That test was followed by trained Jordanian military personnel taking control of the system and doing their own tests. Dietrich said that Iraqi officials interested in border security technology viewed a demonstration of the JBSP while it was controlled by Jordanian personnel.
The overall value of the JBSP contract, which is being done as a foreign military sale through the U.S. Army, is well over $350 million, Dietrich said. The contract for the initial phase was worth $38 million. DRS has already received another $38 million order to begin work on another 50 kilometer length of border that should be operational in one year, Phil Macklin, DRS’ director of Business Development for Border and Force Protection Systems within the C3&A division, told Defense Daily. He said the newest deployment will require about the same number of fixed and mobile Distant Sentry systems as the first installment. The length of the entire JBSP build out is sensitive, the company officials said.
DRS touts its Distant Sentry surveillance system as an open architecture solution for border security and force protection. The company has already created an interface to integrate its Manportable Surveillance and Target Acquisition Radar and is doing the same with a newly developed radar from Finmeccanica. Distant Sentry can also be equipped with DRS’ CHILI infrared imaging sensor.
Dietrich said that the towers, sensors and communications equipment being used for JBSP are all scalable.
Dietrich said that he will be meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II later this month to discuss a possible acceleration of the program, which he said Jordan is interested in. Current plans are to build out the JBSP in five to seven years, he said.
DRS has experience in other border security programs. The company is helping Boeing [BA], which is the prime contractor for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Secure Border Initiative, and has provided mobile surveillance systems for Egypt. DRS previously had demonstrated a port security program for Bahrain.