Blighter publishes Airport Security white paper
Written by radar industry veteran Mark Radford, the white paper
highlights how attention at tier one and tier two airports is turning from the strict levels of security employed for passenger screening to safeguarding the perimeter. This renewed focus is being driven by the continued targeting of aviation by terrorist groups worldwide as well as by the ongoing threat from political activists, stowaways and unwanted intruders.
The white paper includes a comparison between low-cost mechanically scanned radars and solid state electronic scanning radar systems. It briefly assesses the advantages and disadvantages of active (AESA) versus passive (PESA) electronically scanned array technologies, and it highlights the growing trend towards airports introducing integrated radar/camera solutions – as is the case at London Heathrow.
Peter Hanlon, airports sales manager, Blighter Surveillance Systems, said: “The flat and open nature of airports allows perimeter surveillance radars (PSRs) to be effectively deployed to deliver improved intruder detection in all weather, 24 hours a day. PSRs also offer considerable operational cost savings when compared to using CCTV and large numbers of security personnel.”
The white paper also lists the ideal radar attributes for surveillance at airports and stresses that Doppler processing is absolutely essential to the cluttered airport environment as it enables the operator to discern smaller, slow moving targets such as intruders on foot from larger and faster objects such as taxiing aircraft or support vehicles.
