Yesterday the Senate approved the so called ‘border surge’ provision in the federal immigration reform bill currently moving through Congress. The vote would seemingly cast aside previous congressional focus on austerity in order to militarize the southern US border, putting more border agents and high tech surveillance along the border than ever before. Typically for projects like this, the big contracting names come to mind – Northrop, Lockheed, Bechtel. However, there are a few others lining up that are well known to the US military, but may be less familiar here at home.
HGH Infrared Systems, which provides security cameras and perimeter surveillance in Afghanistan and other Department of Defense outposts is now out with a new border solution. HGH’s Spynel camera is a complete, high resolution, near real time, thermal camera with full panoramic imaging coupled with detection and tracking software. The technology has already been tested in harsh desert climates, which company spokesperson Briana Shea notes in an interview with CivSource, makes it a contender for the harsh climate of states like Arizona.
Although border crossings are at new lows, they are changing locations, for the first time in ten years, the majority of border crossings have moved from the Arizona border to the Rio Grande border in Texas. The border surge is expected to cost at least $3 billion dollars and create jobs for hundreds of new border agents.
Shea notes the company has already done some testing on private land in Texas which went well. “You can see humans and their thermal imprint for up to 6km. The cameras are also outfitted with an alert system that will let you know what is coming through a perimeter at any given time.” The camera can also be mounted on the top of vehicles.
Last hear HGH participated in a project with the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ that captured an image of the New York skyline in infrared. At that time the company demonstrated its IR Revolution 360 technology which was able to capture the entire view in real time. That exercise captured all scenery, the maritime traffic, human and vehicle operations on the opposite shore and flow of airplanes into JFK.