Tel Aviv. Elbit Systems of America was selected to supply trailer-mounted surveillance tower systems to the US Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP). These systems will reduce operator workload and increase situational awareness and safety.
In late 2019, the US CBP selected the company’s Intelligent Trailer Mounted Surveillance Tower solution for use along the US southern border. In April 2020, the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) selected Elbit Systems of America’s Autonomous Relocatable Surveillance Tower system for future deployment by US Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
The trailer-mounted system selected by the CBP is a relocatable configuration designed to quickly deploy surveillance capability to examine border areas of increased activity or with land use and environmental concerns.
The 80-foot tower system provides superior long-range situational awareness, using integrated advanced surveillance sensors, including electro-optical and infrared cameras and ground surveillance radars that transmit imagery and locations for items of interest in real time to the TORCH Common Operating Picture located at command and control centers and to the Agents in the field.
As part of the CTTSO program, Elbit Systems of America will demonstrate the capabilities of a trailer-mounted, 110-foot tower, equipped with a suite of cutting-edge sensors, in various conditions over the next year. The long-range sensor payload on this tower system consists of a ground surveillance radar, a high-resolution day camera, a thermal camera, and a laser illuminator.
The tower’s trailer provides electronic enclosures, security features and a power generator. This trailer-based tower can be quickly deployed to areas-of-interest and set up by users in less than two hours.
The Autonomous Relocatable Surveillance Tower system uses artificial intelligence/computer vision to automatically maintain situational awareness by autonomously detecting, tracking, and identifying items of interest and then sending the information to command and control centers with no operator intervention.
This increased level of automation and autonomy reduces operator workload to the point where fewer Agents are needed in the command & control center to surveil larger portions of the border allowing some to return to the field.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
