Leaders at the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., needed activity sensors as part of the Persistent Surveillance Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) Program. They found a solution with Harris Corp. RF Communications Division in Rochester, N.Y.
Harris will provide USCENTCOM’s component commands and the Joint Special Operations Command with Silent Watch Remote Intrusion-Detection systems. The contract was awarded by Networld Exchange of Carlsbad, Calif., via its Open Market Corridor (OMC), a web-based contract vehicle sponsored by the Department of Interior/National Business Center.
The Silent Watch system is for the USCENTCOM UGS program and is an outgrowth of the recently announced Harris Falcon Watch sensor product line. The Silent Watch system uses the Falcon Watch RF-5405 Intelligent Gateway, a communications node that receives alarms from multiple sensors and fuses the data into actionable reports for satellite-based relay to command centers.
“Most activity sensors in use today were developed to be operational for only 30 days after placement, but new minimum requirements, such as for USCENTCOM UGS, call for an operational lifespan of 90 to 180 days,” says George Helm, vice president of growth programs in the Harris RF Communications Division. “The Harris Silent Watch sensor systems will meet or exceed the lifetime requirements while providing more functionality to better identify and reject false target reports.”
The UGS systems will be used to monitor borders and perimeters in USCENTCOM’s areas of responsibility, which stretch from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia. For more information, see www.rfcomm.harris.com.
