BORDER AND AVIATION SECURITY

To answer this demand, S&T is helping agents and officers detect threats with technologies like the BioSwimmer and the Hostile Intent program. Once completed, these will provide the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration with actionable data to make game-time decisions.

In 2016, we successfully demonstrated the BioSwimmer, an underwater robot—modeled like a fish—that can find illicit cargo and contraband and unwanted activity with its ability to twist and turn in tight spaces around and under ships. This allows officers the ability to identify and interdict smuggling. In the same vein of detection, but in a different setting S&T is looking at how we can help officers identify a person planning to engage in a harmful act at a port of entry with its Hostile Intent Program. In 2016, S&T conducted laboratory testing on this kiosk-based technology to set a baseline for its 2017 usability study that will test the technology with Transportation Security Officers.

In 2016, S&T held its fourth Canada-United States Enhanced Resiliency Experiment (CAUSE) event, CAUSE IV. Together with Canada we tested a response scenario to a hypothetical tornado on the Blue Water Bridge.

Specifically, we tested the interoperability of paramedic and health services by using cross-border broadband wireless networks. We also explored our capability to automate models for alerting, situational awareness, citizen engagement and mutual aid planning efforts into an integrated and semi-automated process.

But coordination doesn’t just happen across borders. Whether it’s how to build capabilities for small unmanned aerial systems or giving agents more situational awareness and safety, S&T builds partnerships to address challenges like Internet of Things Security. Through our Silicon Valley Innovation Program, we partnered with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to look for companies that could capabilities for small unmanned aerial systems to support CBP officers’ and agents’ situational awareness and safety, and building additional capability into CBP’s Global Travel Assessment System. Five companies received awards including Echodyne, Tamr, Shield AI, Goleta Star and Factom.

To help realize greater efficiencies, S&T has taken steps to optimize the tools and processes through its Apex Air Entry/Exit Re-engineering (AEER) and People Screening programs. In 2016, S&T worked with U.S. Customs Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations to help develop Mobile Passport Control, which CBP deployed to 20 airports, and it also installed a promising RFID-based tracking solution in Dulles International Airport. Through our Apex AEER and People Screening programs, S&T is providing solutions for CBP to ease traveler congestion, reduce paper-based processes, and increase officer situational awareness.

At our land borders, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers must be able to quickly solve unique challenges, such as how to efficiently house detainee families given the variations in number of family members, age and gender. To help increase the number of families they could house in Family Residential Centers in South Texas, S&T’s Apex Modeling and Simulation Engine Lab and Operations Requirements and Analysis team delivered a solution that optimized configurations using predictive modeling. This enables ICE to simulate configuration adjustments to accommodate more occupants while adhering to family housing guidelines. Back to Top