Based on the results of a user driven requirements generation process, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking comments on maritime radar for use in its Buffalo, N.Y., sector which shares 450 miles of border with Canada.
CBP’s Office of Technology Innovation and Acquisition plans to use the information to help it form an acquisition strategy and cost estimates to purchase a capability to detect, track, identify and classify maritime traffic along the borer and provide relevant threat information quickly to a command and control center to aid decision making. The system would also include full motion video to identify and classify targets of interest.
The maritime radar system should also integrate with Automatic Identification Systems to discriminate between legitimate commercial ship traffic and other targets of interest.
The requirement for the maritime radar grew out of the Northern Border Air and Marine Domain Awareness (AMDA) Project, in particular the maritime detection sub-project. The maritime detection effort will provide an initial operational capability and an opportunity to assess available technologies, refine operational requirements and further develop concepts of operation for maritime domain awareness.
CBP is seeking component technologies at a high technology readiness level, eight or higher, with integrated systems at a readiness level of seven or higher. An integrated system would include the radar sensors, towers and other existing structures, a communications network, and the ability to display the location, speed and direction of surface targets of interest to a common operating picture (COP). The COP will be displayed at the Border Patrol’s Sector Integrated Border Communications Center for primary command and control and the Buffalo Station for secondary command and control.
Proposed systems will consist of commercial-off-the-shelf technology and may include government-off-the-shelf items and be capable of operations all-day, every day along the Great Lakes Maritime Region. CBP has identified four locations for deployment of radar sensors, three on existing structures and one on an 80-foot monopole.
The AMDA was created out of a process that consisted of user workshops involving operators from various CBP divisions including Field Operations, Air and Marine, Border Patrol and Intelligence and Operations Coordination in direct support of the Buffalo Sector. The sector includes Lakes Erie and Ontario, the Niagara River, and 33 miles of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Priority in the current effort is focused on the eastern part of Lake Erie and the western part of Lake Ontario.
The sensors are expected to operate in harsh environments, given that winters in the area are typically cold and with a lot of snow and wind. CBP says that the Great Lakes often freeze in the winter, making them passable by snowmobiles, increasing the number of targets of interest that a maritime radar system must address. [Sol. No. RFI_AMDA_MarRad. Respond by March 28. Contact: Jack Waller, contract specialist, 571-468-7011, [email protected].]