News
Aviation Business Asia Pacific Magazine - Radar Article
December 18 2008
RADAR SEEKS PLACE IN AIRPORT SURVEILLANCE
Doug Nancarrow - Aviation Business Asia Pacific Magazine Dec08/Jan09 issue.
Sydney-based Zone Advanced Protection Systems is hopeful that it will see the first installation of ground surveillance radar at an Australian airport in the not too distant future.
The company, which markets multi-layered perimeter surveillance solutions, believes the radar element is the missing link in airport security in this country, given the reliance on fencing and cameras.
The complete solution that Zone APS is offering can include medium to long-range radars, augmented with shorter-range radars to eliminate blind spots. All radars can then be interoperable with cameras providing 'slew to cue' functionality, which means intruders will be detected, pinpointed and tracked; and the cameras can provide visual identification and information allow for assessment and appropriate response.
The ICX ground surveillance radars Zone APS is working with are used to detect ground targets up to 12,000 metres from the unit. The technology detects moving and newly introducedstationary targets; and is able to filter out environmental 'noise' such as heavy rain.
The radar was used successfully during the 2007 APEC meeting, and Zone APS is confident that experience of the technology will accelerate adoption by larger airports here.
"We are in the quotation stage of negotiations with several airports at the moment, following a series of demonstrations of the technology", says Ben Nolan, product manager for Zone APS. " This product has been used fairly extensivley in the US for some time now, including by the US Air Force, so we are talking with Defence here as well."
"This is not a new technology, but in a sense it is to security because radar has traditionally been viewed as not a perimeter security tool. But as soon as we do the demonstrations people see its value. It is actually quite a low-cost item, so price is not a major issue."
Zone APS points out that cameras provide a relatively narrow field of view as compared to wide area radars, and believes that successfull solutions for wide area surveillance should provide 360 degree situational awareness using a combination of radar and cameras.