Force protection plus

Jan 1, 1998 12:00 PM, CAROL CAREY

Security automation benefits on campus: A cost/benefit case for small scale re-engineering

On June 25, 1996, a truck bomb exploded at Khobar Towers on the edge of the Khobar military complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen and wounding several hundred other people. At the time, the United States Air Force had already begun development of a security system designed to significantly enhance physical security at bases such as Khobar.

The explosion at Khobar Towers left a 35-foot-deep crater and has been called the most deadly guerrilla attack on Americans in the Middle East since an October 1983 suicide bombing killed 241 U.S. servicemen in Beirut, Lebanon. Immediately after the attack, the Air Force rushed its new Tactical Automated Security System (TASS) into production.

The Air Force also took other steps to decrease the vulnerability of armed forces personnel overseas, particularly in southwest Asia. Some personnel were positioned away from actual cities. In Saudi Arabia, servicemen stationed at the Khobar Towers complex were repositioned to Prince Sultan Air Base near Alkhar.

"We set up a compound there where our Air Force people could work, and we put in the TASS system to protect them," explains Air Force Col. Russell Peter, director of force protection C2 systems at the Air Force's Electronics System Center (ESC), headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base outside Boston.

So far, the TASS system has been set up in six or seven sites in Saudi Arabia, and the Air Force has contracted $497 million to install TASS and TASS-related systems at sites around the world in the next four to five years, according to Bob Sanguinet, TASS system engineer.

The effort is an example of the Air Force's stepped-up commitment not only to enhance security for its personnel, but also to employ high-tech security systems.

The electronics systems center (ESC), in addition to developing the TASS system, has just finished development of an advanced entry control system that will integrate access control, CCTV and alarm functions. The system will be installed at 10 to 12 weapons storage areas throughout the United States within the next year.

Discussing the Air Force's overall commitment to physical security, Col. Peter says, "The ESC was reorganized to put greater emphasis on customer needs, and force protection - a 20-year-old function - became more important than in the past." A manifestation of the added imperative was the creation in August of a two-letter Colonel position to oversee force protection. Peter was designated the force protection program officer; the "two-letter" position is just below the top rank of General, and Peter reports directly to the ESC Commander.

The TASS program

The force protection function has been historically dedicated to physical security, but the TASS program has been expanded to integrate intelligence functions and to provide enhanced detection and assessment of intrusions to designated sites and their perimeter areas.

"Our goal was to develop a security system that would overcome problems - the labor-intensive nature, complex installation, cabling requirements - that traditional security systems posed for segments of the military that required mobility and rapid deployment. Even lighting requirements had to be overcome," says Sanguinet.

The Air Force wanted a mobile, modular-type security system, one that was wireless, that would work during the dark desert nights, that could be put together and transported on not more than two airplane pallets, and that could be ready to go in the event of an international crisis.

"TASS is portable, and can be relocated at a moment's notice to fit the Air Force's mobility requirements," Sanguinet points out.

TASS employs:

* microwave and infrared sensors (from Southwest Microwave, Tempe, Ariz.) to protect the perimeter of Air Force bases;

* radio frequency (RF) transmission networks for reporting alarm data;

* desktop, laptop and hand-held computers to receive, process, report and graphically display alarm information; and * thermal imagers for assessment of the information.

In developing the system, says Sanguinet, "we talked to users and observed their needs. They would have maps up on walls with acetate overlays 4- to 6-feet high. They'd draw pictures on the overlays. They would use compasses. We felt we could provide them with a more precise and efficient system with computers.

"The program we decided upon, by Intergraph Corp. of Hunts-ville, Ala., has mapping and display software which was tailored for our needs. It includes a variety of types of maps and allows us to create layers of maps electronically. With the program, we can work out tasks such as how to cordon off an area, put concentric circles around it and determine traffic and evacuation patterns. These would be critical tasks in case of a bombing or bomb threat. All these coordinates can be seen together with multiple overlays."

In situations where an actual engagement is taking place, defensive fighting areas and placement of weapons can all be annotated on the computer maps, says Sanguinet. The placement of sensors around an air base can be positioned precisely on the computer map, whose coordinates are geographically correct. Data from global positioning satellites can be used to help create these geographically correct maps. Infrared and microwave boundary sensors, another element in the TASS security system, are placed around the perimeter of the air base and can detect intrusions within a 100- to 200-meter range. The microwave sensors are either bistatic (with separate transmitters and receivers) or monostatic (with the transmitter and receiver in one unit). The transmitters send out a pulse, and if the pulse is different on return, the alarm is activated.

The infrared sensors are either passive, picking up a change in heat, or active, acting like break beams to provide a wall of detection. RF transmission networks use "smart" links to transmit the alarm signals to annunciators such as computers or hand-held intelligent monitors for processing. When sensors go into alarm, an RF transceiver (the communication module) sends an RF message to an RF transceiver attached to the annunciator. Racal Communications Inc., Rockville, Md., manufactures the transceivers. The signals go over user-configurable channels, at 12.5 KHz channel spacing, within the 138-174 (VHF) MHz and 406-470 (UHF) MHz frequency bands, and are capable of covering more than five miles. The "smart" links have been designed to wait for confirmation of receipt of their signal.

Information can be received and processed both at a central command location, using a PC such as the Gateway 200 MHz computer with a Windows NT operating system, or by laptop or a hand-held intelligent monitor. The information is integrated using mapping and display software by Intergraph Corp.

The hand-held monitor allows a security officer in a remote location or a person in a fox hole or fighting position to receive the same information as the operator at the desktop computer, notes Sanguinet. "It allows forces to be more highly integrated with each other," he says. "The hand-held monitor includes a display screen with text that, like the host computer, indicates which sensors have gone into alarm and where they are."

Hand-held, vehicle and long-range thermal imagers decipher the computer messages, indicating by heat energy whether the intrusion is caused by humans. For instance, at night when the temperature drops, they reveal a bright light beacon caused by body heat.

The hand-held imagers are meant to be used by an individual. The vehicle-mounted imagers provide short-range coverage, and the long-range imagers can be mounted 200 to 300 feet in the air and cover a 1.5- to 3-kilometer range. "They can assess an entire base, and have been used to do so in places such as the Kunsan Air Base in Korea," says Sanguinet.

The long-range imagers are made by Agema, a Swedish company with American headquarters in Secaucus, N.J.; Hughes Magnavox makes the hand-held thermal imagers, and Texas Instruments manufactures the vehicle-mounted imagers.

TRW Inc., Carson, Calif., is the contractor that produced, integrated and installed the TASS equipment at the sites in southwest Asia. The system was designed under ESC auspices in conjunction with other private contractors over a period of several years.

Advanced entry control system

The ESC, under program manager Capt. Jayanth Gummaraju, has just completed the design and development phase of an advanced entry control system to protect weapons storage areas in the United States that are currently being secured by a combination of guards and older systems. The new systems will enable these areas to redeploy their guards more efficiently, as well as afford them state-of-the-art security systems.

Systems Planning Corp. of Arlington, Va., is the prime contractor and chief integrator for the advanced entry control system, using core software, card readers and recognition systems (such as hand geometry units) primarily from Mosler Inc., Chatsworth, Calif. The system will replace existing alarm and access control devices, and will have CCTV and video recorders integrated as well. "The product," says Capt. Gummaraju, "uses Mosler's Linx software program, tailored to the Air Force program's needs. The system provides both a text screen and a graphic screen so we can look at an area on a map and see instantly where the alarm occurred."

Unlike the TASS system, this one will be stationary, connected to a file server by either fiber optics or through large copper-wire networks. The access control system will be designed to accommodate different levels of access, depending on the user's classification and the area's designation. While a swipe card will be sufficient to gain access to one area, other individuals may need to put in PIN numbers as well, and some will have to use cards, PIN numbers and biometric devices (such as hand geometry) to gain access to the more restricted areas.

The program is run through a Unix-based operating system. "This system's software will be able to read alarms at access points as well as alarms on fences around the areas. It will contain a network of wiring that will cross over all different points we're protecting, including sensors and alarms," says Gummaraju.

The system, which makes immediate visual assessment possible, is being piloted at a test site and will be installed within the next 12 months at 10 to 12 U.S. weapons storage sites. "The system is designed to assist the security forces already at these sites, assist with any intruders and augment the guard force," says Col. Peter. He notes that these efforts represent the programs that are being coordinated by the ESC, but that the Air Force employs a wide variety of security systems overall, including under-vehicle video systems designed to detect explosives hidden under trucks, and low-tech equipment such as Jersey barriers.

But the ESC programs clearly demonstrate the Air Force's interest in enhancing physical security at its bases around the world as well as at weapons storage sites in the U.S., and the high priority it is placing on high-tech, electronic security systems.

"After the Khobar Towers incident, force protection has been elevated to look at the protection of people, soldiers and families of soldiers overseas. The division is on guard against terrorist activities such as the truck bomb, as well as chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction. It is also looking at the threat to our aircraft overseas," says Col. Peter. "It looks more closely now at the deployment of people in case of crisis, including civil engineering, fire safety and security personnel, with an eye to providing them with security command and control equipment."

The TASS system, in particular, is one that Air Force commanders around the world are looking forward to receiving. Sites that will receive the systems over the next four to fiveyears are presently being identified, according to Col. Peter.

"Each of the Air Force's major commands that like to be ready to go anywhere would like to have sets of this equipment," he says.

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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