By John McHale

RESTON, Va. - Officials at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems and the U.S. Coast Guard installed advanced equipment and software aboard Coast Guard and other law-enforcement vessels to enhance maritime security during the Organization of American States General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last month.

The vessels were linked with the port- and coastal-surveillance system, called “Hawkeye,” which monitors the ports of Miami and Port Everglades, Fla. Hawkeye integrates radar, cameras and automatic-identification technologies with a command, control, and communications system to detect, track, and analyze vessel traffic around ports and along nearby coastal areas, Northrop Grumman officials say.

Northrop Grumman’s Mission Systems sector installed similar systems for the Coast Guard in Boston and New York for added security during the Democratic and Republican national conventions; at the Coast Guard’s Joint Harbor Operations Center in Hampton Roads, Va.; and in the Port of Charleston, S.C., as part of a U.S. Department of Justice pilot project. Northrop Grumman is also installing a variant of the system overseas to support a U.S. Defense Threat-Reduction Agency program.

Northrop Grumman Mission Systems and the U.S. Coast Guard Command and Control Engineering Center developed Hawkeye under a program initiated in late 1993 that is now under the authority of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“The Department of Homeland Security places a premium on surveillance capabilities that can be employed in layered, multi-agency, maritime security operations to identify and intercept threats well before they reach U.S. shores,” says Barry Rhine, sector vice president, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems.