Blighter Surveillance Systems, a British designer and manufacturer of electronic-scanning (e-scan) radars and surveillance solutions, has partnered with Genetec, a leading technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations and business intelligence, to integrate its range of Blighter ground surveillance radars with Genetec Security Center, the company’s flagship unified IP security platform.
This integration enables airports to ‘fold-in’ the wide area surveillance capability provided by Blighter’s range of radars, super-charging situational awareness in their existing command and control (C2) systems to deliver round the clock surveillance in all weather and light conditions. The collaboration will also enable the Blighter radar and target tracking data to be shared across Genetec’s other decision management and support systems as well as with its collaborative digital management solution, Genetec Clearance.
This integration will make it easier to introduce Blighter’s maintenance free solid-state micro-Doppler radars and tracker into airports providing improved situational awareness but without adding to the complexity of installed systems.
Another benefit of the Blighter/Security Center integration is the ability to create Dynamic Virtual (non-physical) Perimeters across an airport site. This is helpful for providing CZ/RZ (controlled zone/restricted zone) separation monitoring but it is particularly useful for the many airports undergoing expansion or enhancement projects. The ability to build Dynamic Virtual Perimeters around work areas is hugely attractive both as a cost-saving measure and as a means of reducing disruption inside an operating area that is already very crowded and busy.
Genetec Security Center is a unified security platform that blends IP security systems within a single intuitive interface to simplify operations. From access control, video surveillance, and automatic license plate recognition to communications, intrusion detection, and analytics, Security Center provides enhanced situational awareness, unified command and control, and connectivity to the Cloud.
Blighter’s passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radars, featuring Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) micro-Doppler fast scan capability, perform well in cluttered airport environments, detecting small and slow-moving targets with minimal false alarms. The radars deliver a 24x7x365 all-weather persistent surveillance capability.
The Blighter B400 series radar is most popular for airports, as it can detect and track a person walking at a distance of 11 km (6.8 miles), a person crawling at 4.6 km (2.9 miles) or a large moving vehicle at 25 km (15.5 miles) and then cue a camera system to follow and identify the targets. The Blighter radar can be mounted high up on existing airport infrastructure thereby minimising installation costs and maximising surveillance as the radar can see over obstacles including aircraft and vehicles.
