Improvements In Machine Vision Enhance Border Surveillance

Tactical infrastructure such as fencing, roads, and lighting is important to secure a nation's border. But it is not enough to prevent the illegal movement of people and smuggling into the country.

"Technology is the main driver of global awareness of land, sea and air dominance, more clearly than Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the face of future threats," CBP officials say at a Senate hearing on national security. in 2015.

And the fingerprints of artificial vision are all this technology. "The information provided by fixed surveillance systems and mobile ground-based sensors, imaging systems, and other advanced technologies will improve situational awareness and enable CBPs to identify, identify, monitor and adequately respond to threats in the future. border regions ". ,

For example, at the US-Mexico border in the State of Arizona, to recognize Integrated Tower Systems (IFTs) and continually pursue them as "items of interest". Designed to withstand the harsh desert environment, IFT cameras equipped with radar are commercial thermal and thermal imagers and microwave transmitters that send data to border control at the Nogales station for analysis and decision-making...

On the three fronts of land, sea and air surveillance, industrial vision offers imaging systems and, more often, data analysis that meets governments' goals of flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and ease of implementation. in border security. applications

Treat with different conditions

The perennial problem with vision systems used in border surveillance applications is the administration, the variety of outdoor environments with varying lighting and weather conditions, as well as the varied terrain. Despite the challenges, "there are places where you can implement controls to improve the intelligence system," Dr. Rex Lee, President and CEO of Pyramid Imaging (Tampa, Florida). Tells customers to monitor trains along the southern border of the United States. UU For illegal passengers.

"These trains are under a grid that can be equipped with sensors and proper lighting to inspect trains," says Dr. Lee. The state agencies responsible for border security use infrared to detect targets at night and in other bad cameras, thermal imaging but also their limitations. "Infrared cameras work great when you can use them in high contrast conditions," Dr. Lee says. "But if you're trying to get a human at 98.6 ° F in desert soil is 100 ° F, the desert radiation is emitted almost to the same part of the spectrum, so customers rely on other parts of the spectrum. spectrum such as short-wave infrared (SWIR) to try to capture the difference.

The infrared image works well in the surveillance of the PWC when the boat's engine has a thermal signature. "The good thing about water is that it is relatively uniform and easy to" see "the soil and the anomalies. Lee.

But the problem is that the oceans have a lot of surfaces to cover. Dr. Lee says, "Seeing all this compromise is having a lot of systems between monitoring the water or systems that are in the sky, in which case you have the problem of seeing something very small overall view."