The Border Patrol in September plans to conduct operational tests of three different types of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) at different border locations to help evaluate requirements and assess capabilities, an agency official said on Tuesday.
The testing will include a short-range quadcopter UAS that can stay aloft about 30 minutes, a Raven UAS that can travel further and stay airborne longer, and another type of UAS that can remain in the air about three hours, Scott Luck, acting deputy chief of the Border Patrol, said at a House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security. The Raven system is made by AeroVironment [AVAV]. The quadcopter is an Instant Eye made by PSI Tactical Robots and the longer endurance system is a Puma, also made by AeroVironment.
The testing will take place in southern Arizona, southern Texas, and Swanton, Vt., Luck said at the hearing, which addressed the role of technology in securing the border.
Luck said the small UAS are a “gap filler for needed air requirements,” adding that previous assessments and tests have already helped the agency in fill in gaps in requirements. The Border Patrol wants the small UAS to help with surveillance between ports of entry in remote and isolated areas.
“The sUAS needs to provide ground discreet reconnaissance, surveillance, and tracking capabilities to support the USBP surveillance tasks of predicting, detecting, tracking, identifying and classifying suspected items of interest,” Luck and other officials from Customs and Border Protection said in joint prepared remarks to the panel. The FY ’18 request for the small UAS efforts is $2.5 million, which is to “expand pilot projects and develop and official program of record,” they said.
CBP’s Office of Air and Marine currently operates Predator UAS, a medium altitude, long-endurance system, for border and maritime security missions. The agency operates nine Predators, four that can be equipped with Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radars that can detect human movement on the ground.
Dennis Michelini, acting executive director of Operations for the Air and Marine Office, said the office is “close to expanding” Predator UAS operations equipped with VADER in Arizona by going from 16 hour flights five days a week to around-the-clock operations five days a week, which would help overcome weather-related impacts on flights by providing more flexibility for when aircraft takeoff and land. Initial evaluations of the 24 by five operations have shown “massive bumps in availability,” he said.
CBP looking at equipping manned aircraft with the VADER radar but that it would be “a few years out” from being available, Michelini said in response to a question by Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), chairwoman of the subcommittee. He said pilot testing of VADER with manned aircraft is underway and told McSally he would get back to the panel with a clearer timeframe on when the radar will be ready for manned operations.
Rebecca Gambler, director of Homeland Security and Justice with the Government Accountability Office, told the panel that overall, CBP has made progress in deploying technology along the nation’s southwest border.
“As of July 2017, CBP completed deployment of select technologies to areas in Arizona, Texas and California,” Gambler said in her prepared remarks. “For example, CBP deployed all planned Remote Video Surveillance Systems (RVSS) and Mobile Surveillance Capability (MSC) systems, and 15 of 53 Integrated Fixed Tower systems to Arizona. CBP also deployed all planned MSC systems to Texas and California and completed contract negotiations to deploy RVSS to Texas.”
Gambler said that CBP still has more to do in terms of developing metrics to assess the effectiveness of border security technology as well as physical barriers that have been erected in certain areas along the southwest border.