A little more than a year ago Boeing won the multi-billion dollar contract from Homeland Security to secure 6,000 miles of the border. Boeing’s plan to erect 1,800 towers equipped with a sensor cluster of video, heat, motion and radar detectors is a significant trial of the sensor web concept.
The system called the Secure Border Initiative (SBInet) is first being deployed on a 28-mile stretch of the Mexican border near Tucson. This first phase, dubbed Project 28, is a deployment of nine 98-foot towers.
Each tower along the virtual fence is designed to sweep a 10-mile radius. If a threat is detected, the camera can be commandeered by a border patrol agent to zoom in and assess the nature of the threat. The tower’s sensor cluster communicates via a wireless network with laptops within patrol vehicles.
To date the initial phase of the project is behind schedule and over budget. A detailed assessment of the progress can be viewed on the CorpWatch website.
According to Boeing, the system is suffering from software integration and other problems. In addition, the radar has been reported to have failed by sending false alerts of rainfall.
Boeing is said to have spent more than $40 million on the fixed cost $20 million project, and there’s a great deal of congressional heat being applied due to time overruns.
Regardless of how you feel about the application of this technology or the cost to taxpayers, this initiative tackles some difficult technical challenges that could benefit future sensor web projects. The use of integrated sensors to observe and detect natural phenomena, and gain a better understanding of Earth’s systems, holds great promise for better stewardship of our planet.
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I’m wondering if you could dupe the system by creating a decoy maneuver at one end to draw the guards’ attention and make a break elsewhere?
I just watched ‘The Great Escape’.
Newsweek had a brief article on this technology. They had a nice little graphic showing the sensor web at the border.
I didn’t take a good look at the date of the Newsweek. It was very recent, since they were also talking about Cals recent fires.
KoS