General Dynamics UK offers a range of surveillance solutions for border protection

At this year’s Defexpo, General Dynamics UK is showcasing how its range of imaging solutions can play a key role in helping India solve numerous security challenges, whether military or civil security, and resilience.

Thanks to the company’s systems integration approach, its wide range of cameras and sensors can be networked to allow commanders monitor large swathes of frontier from one control room; thereby, responding to an incursion more rapidly and effectively. Those control rooms can be anything from a purpose built facility to the General Dynamics UK’s own deployable infrastructure solutions more suited to positioning such capability in the most inaccessible locations along India’s borders.

General Dynamics UK’s family of imaging solutions, many of which are currently used on operations, ranges from a handheld camera that can be used by dismounted soldiers up to its ISO persistent surveillance (ISOPS) ‘solution in a box’-a containerised control room with a full array of cameras and sensors attached to its mast. These imaging systems don’t only offer surveillance capability but also targeting and target acquisition.

Border and coastal security

An enduring challenge for India’s security is the level of threat of incursion over its northern borders or sea coast. A means of monitoring these frontiers on a continuous basis and receiving automatic alerts of any incursion, especially in the most vulnerable and remote locations, would help Indian security forces respond more quickly and more efficiently to any threat.

General Dynamics UK’s ISOPS capability answers this need. ISOPS is a cost-effective, persistent surveillance asset housed in a 20-foot ISO container that provides high performance surveillance, target acquisition and communications capabilities in a ‘box’, and can be simply and effectively deployed to any location from flat-bed truck, freight train, Chinook helicopter, C-130 Hercules or A400M transport plane.

ISOPS provides a fixed infrastructure that can be deployed within to provide wide-ranging protection capability using the Kylmar long-range camera (BRC3K-TI) and any number of centrally controlled passive and active sensors. ISOPS can be deployed for long periods for permanent and semipermanent installations.

It features a 20 m climbable lattice tower that travels in sections within the ISO containers profile, and is easily assembled and attached to the ISO container by a crew of two in only two hours. Individual cameras and sensors are fitted before or during the tower assembly, allowing full deployment without the need to climb the structure. There is no need for fixed or pre-prepared infrastructure as outriggers offer the necessary stability to allow the unit to operate in rough, remote terrain such as some of India’s frontier areas.

Each sensor package is combined with a high performance sensor positioning system to ensure the highest possible directional accuracy. When integrated with a command and control system, ISOPS provides a highly flexible command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C2ISR) suite that can be tailored to suit specific mission objectives. The ISOPS command centre, located inside the unit, contains a number of sensor control systems, visual aids and integral location software along with communication devices to create a link with the central command post. A network of systems using a number of ISOPS containers and smaller modules can be strategically sited to provide a surveillance solution for a wider geographical area.

Other optical solutions

Providing more flexible deployment, the ISAS system is designed to provide a more short-term deployable surveillance and targeting system for border surveillance and other persistent observation tasks that require a smaller deployment team. The ISAS is a portable 15-metre mast system that can be mounted on the ground, trailer or other transportable mechanism and installed within an hour. It provides a similar capability to ISOPS but is designed to occupy and smaller footprint and as such addresses applications with shorter periods of deployment. Like ISOPS, ISAS is modifiable to suit the specific applications to include radars or other passive sensors and longer range variants.

P-SAS offers a smaller capability that can be used by dismounted soldiers. With an all integrated self-contained control and operational mechanism, PSAS can be used to protect dismounted soldiers and provide surveillance capabilities for border patrols, etc. Custom designed systems are possible along with options such as P-SAS/Blighter Explorer. This is a fully-integrated GIS-based portable ground-based radar and camera system that uses the radar to detect targets then brings the camera onto the target to give visual information and target ID.

SR-SAS provides short-range surveillance capabilities for quick to use, hurry-up systems for above the line observation and perimeter surveillance. Simple day and night operation are possible using off-the-shelf components. To know more about General Dynamics UK’s imaging solutions; visit Stand 14-24 at Defexpo 2012 at the Pragati Maidan, New Delhi or log on to www.generaldynamics.uk.com.