Safe skiesSecuring U.S. skies
Extended stretches of U.S. land borders invite illegal entry on the ground, and U.S. coastlines are often used for unauthorized seaborne entry. New, creative attempts at illegal activity in these domains are a daily occurrence. Aerial threats pose a different challenge as they have no natural barriers restricting them — land or coastal. Commercialization of drone technology, for all the beneficial opportunities it provides, also enables a new medium for criminal activity and other homeland security threats.
Extended stretches of U.S. land borders invite illegal entry on the ground, and U.S. coastlines are often used for unauthorized seaborne entry. New, creative attempts at illegal activity in these domains are a daily occurrence. Aerial threats pose a different challenge as they have no natural barriers restricting them — land or coastal. Airborne illegal entry issues call for expert input from a broad range of public, private, and interagency partners.
Commercialization of drone technology, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS), for all the beneficial opportunities it provides, also enables a new medium for criminal activity and other homeland security threats. The protection of U.S. skies will demand more than ever an effective air surveillance sensor network. Optimizing this begins with an accurate assessment of current air surveillance capabilities and how they operate together. S&T says that to do this, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is creating standards for air surveillance, known as DHS (Interim) Strategic Air Surveillance Requirements (I)SASR.
DHS, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are currently working together to ensure future U.S. air surveillance capabilities meet our nation’s security and aviation safety needs. S&T supports this interagency initiative by assessing the degree to which both current and future proposed radar solutions can meet the country’s needs.
S&T applies modeling and simulation expertise to simulate air traffic and assesses how well current U.S. air surveillance capabilities meet the detection standards established by the DHS (I) SASR.
“S&T’s analysis will provide CBP Air and Marine Operations a detailed understanding of where the DHS (Interim) Strategic Air Surveillance Requirements are being met and where there are gaps in required coverage,” said the Arch Turner, an Operations Analysis Chief at S&T.
