Securing Our Ports
Written by Peter Buxbaum
CGF 2010 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 (July)
How Is The Coast Guard Advancing Technology
To Detect Traffic On The Coast And At Sea?
The United States Coast Guard’s role in battling the recent and potentially catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico illustrated the agency’s multifaceted mission. As the Coast Guard took the lead in attempting to contain the huge slick, its environmental, safety, security and law enforcement functions were all on display.
So too was its role in protecting and enhancing the security of the nation’s ports. As the petroleum behemoth approached the coastline, it threatened the closure of gulf ports and the disruption in billions of dollars of commerce.
“The Coast Guard mission is to ensure the safety of the port and to support the free flow of commerce,” said Jack McCready, chief of the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance branch of the United States Coast Guard Research and Development Center. “Damage to the port can result from planted devices, but also from disasters, which can result in unseen underwater structures that can damage the depth of a shipping channel.”
Peter Miller, the director of the maritime security program at Cubic Applications and the former security director at the port of Tampa, pointed out that the Coast Guard has established high standards for port security. “The captains of the port are Coast Guard officers,” he said. “They set the standards and we all have to perform.”
Among other things, Coast Guard regulations mandate that each port draft a port security plan, update it each year, and make it available for review by local Coast Guard officials. Working at the port of Tampa, Miller noted, “We could have Coast Guard inspectors roaming the port at any given time of the day with a copy of our port security plan, checking to see if they could find a discrepancy. If they did, they would report it and we would have a certain amount of time to fix it.”
Coast guard regulations also require ports to develop an oil spill removal plan, said Captain Kevin Kiefer, chief of the Office of Port and Facility Activities at U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.
STAKEHOLDERS AND HAZARDS
The Coast Guard faces two major challenges in its quest to protect the nation’s ports and the commerce that flows through them, according to Kiefer. One is to coordinate efforts among the many stakeholders in this effort, which includes other government agencies as well as private concerns.
“Some people don’t realize that supply chain interdependencies are very complex,” he said. “There are many government agencies involved. Private companies sometimes don’t like to disclose business information because it may be proprietary.”
The Department of Homeland Security leads an effort among government agencies to address port and supply chain security. “Several government agencies meet to discuss these issues,” said Kiefer. “Creating awareness of the issues at the governmental level is a first step in tacking this problem.”
The second major challenge facing the Coast Guard “is understanding the risk from an all-hazards perspective,” said Kiefer. “There are many ways supply chains can be disrupted. Our day-to-day operations management needs to be able to address these.” Work is being done through the harbor safety committees that the Coast Guard convenes at major ports. According to Kiefer, a lot of port authorities and private sector players are represented on these committees. “The main focus is to talk about security incidents and how to prevent security breaches,” he added. The Coast Guard also advocates that all stakeholders take part in security exercises and that their personnel be properly trained.
Another way the Coast Guard engages the private sector is through a program akin to a neighborhood watch, called America’s Waterway Watch (AWW), which is a combined effort of the Coast Guard and its Reserve and Auxiliary components. Coast Guard Reserve personnel concentrate on connecting with businesses and government agencies, while the Auxiliary focuses on building awareness among recreational boaters.
“The Coast Guard can’t be everywhere at once,” said Kiefer. “Recreational boaters and facilities operators out there can tell if something has changed and can be our eyes and ears.” The Coast Guard provides a toll-free number to a National Response Center, which takes reports of unusual situations, incidents and individuals.
A next generation AWW will have Coast Guard field units more deeply involved in the program. “They will be developing a baseline of areas around the country where the highest risks are likely,” said Kiefer.
ACCESS CONTROL
Cubic’s Miller has consulted with Western hemisphere ports outside the United States under a contract with the Organization of American States, where he performs security assessments in accordance with standards provided by the International Maritime Organization. The one area most in need of improvement, according to Miller, is access control.
“Who do we allow on the port and what sort of credentialing is required?” he said. “What standard is applied to get credentials issued? What constitutes criminal activity that would not allow a port pass to be issued?”
When port access vulnerabilities are found, “We come up with recommended solutions, taking into consideration local resources and capabilities,” Miller said. “We urge them not to invent a new spaceship, but to come up with a solution that the local port authority can actually enact.”
Today’s state of the art for access control is biometric verification technology, where a unique identifier such as fingerprints is used to allow access to authorized port personnel. In the United States, such a program is under way in the form of the transportation worker identity card (TWIC), which became mandatory for unescorted port access beginning in April 2009. The TWIC uses smart card technology that includes a worker’s photo, name and biometric information.
But the program has not been fully implemented as originally envisioned. Port facility and vessel owners and operators would have been required under the original plan to implement TWIC into their existing access control systems and operations, and purchase and utilize card readers that would verify the authenticity of the card and of its embedded biometric information. But because of implementation difficulties, the deployment of electronic readers has been delayed and TWIC is currently being used as a flash card, subject to human inspection and without being verified electronically.
Kiefer’s office is working to get that changed. “The Coast Guard is working on a regulation to get TWIC readers at port facilities and on vessels,” he said.
The Coast Guard has also bought some handheld TWIC readers that will allow its inspectors to verify the authenticity of the credential and of the holder’s identity. “The readers can access the Transportation Security Administration hot list of TWIC cards that need to be revoked,” said Kiefer. “The readers can also access fingerprints gathered by the U.S. visit program of foreign mariners who do not carry TWICs. That way, Coast Guard inspectors can check out personnel aboard high-interest vessels.” The Coast Guard is planning on expanding the handheld reader program.
PORT AND WATERWAY SAFETY
The Coast Guard also uses technology to perform monitoring and surveillance of port facilities. At nine ports in the United States, the Coast Guard has installed a port and waterway safety system developed and marketed by Lockheed Martin. The same system has been deployed at over 20 other locations outside of the United States.
The Lockheed Martin system had its genesis in the 1990s and was focused primarily on navigational safety as part of the Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Service. VTS provides monitoring and navigational advice for vessels in busy channels and waterways.
“The original role of the system was to monitor vessels going in and out of ports to make sure they were not getting too close to each other,” said Todd Labombard, Lockheed Martin’s director of coastal and port surveillance programs. “Radar picks up the vessels and displays their locations on a map.”
After 9/11, the systems took on a dual use. “They are still used for port safety and efficiency,” said Labombard. “Once you are in a port and can see what is going on, you can use that information for the purposes of securing the port.”
At the core of the system is a suite of sensors consisting of radars and cameras. Users can select the appropriate sensor capabilities depending on the size of the expanse they need to survey and the level of fidelity they need from the cameras. Cameras can have both electrooptical capabilities, which detect light, and infrared capabilities, which can be used for night vision.
The sensors are integrated into communications networks that transmit data to maritime domain awareness systems maintained by the Coast Guard and the Navy. This information is married with data transmitted by vessels over the Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) system on its location, flag, the identities of its crew and the cargo it is carrying.
LRIT is a program developed by the Coast Guard for the International Maritime Organization. Beginning in 2006, the program, which encompasses over 40 nations, has required certain classes of commercial vessels to be equipped with a satellite-based system, which would allow tracking by law enforcement organizations worldwide. LRIT’s satellite-based system automatically and periodically transmits a ship’s identity and position. “Visual information tied to data forms a powerful tool for security,” said Labombard.
ADVANCING TECHNOLOGIES
Labombard expects future improvements in the capabilities of long-range cameras and their ability to operate in a maritime environment. “Advancing that technology and processing video data to be able to detect more accurately and at longer ranges vessels of interest will be important,” he said. “It is not so much developing new sensors and new technologies as advancing existing technology to detect vessel traffic at sea and on the coast, and to help the Coast Guard react to them earlier.”
The Coast Guard develops various port security technologies at the Coast Guard Research and Development Center. “The Research and Development Center does not recommend a product,” explained McCready. “We assess the state of the technology by looking at various companies that have technologies of interest, at the academic level to see where the research is heading, and at other government agencies to see how technology might be introduced, integrated and accepted by the Coast Guard.”
One of the missing pieces of the port security puzzle involves the ability to monitor what is going on under the surface of the water. To that end, McCready is investigating how high frequency imaging sonar might help. High frequency sonar can map the floor of the port or its seawalls and deliver images to watchstanders.
“We are reviewing how that type of data can be presented with a certain level of clarity and resolution, so that a watchstander can readily understand whether there is a danger to the safe operation of the port,” said McCready. “The reason we are leaning to sonar as opposed to underwater cameras is that as the turbidity of water increases, optical ranges become radically shortened. High frequency sonar is not as impacted by the presence of silt in the water.”
McCready is also looking into technologies which integrate electro-optical and infrared imaging capabilities. “There are technologies available that use various algorithms to overlay the electrooptical image with the infrared,” he said. “There is research being conducted which would very precisely geolocate the two images so that they can be put together as a single image without distortion.”
In the area of information technology, the R&D center is working on alleviating the glut of data available to watchstanders while providing them with sufficient information to make decisions. “We want to make sure that the available information is presented so that the watchstander can digest it and respond accurately and proportionally,” said McCready.
The R&D center is looking at a multitude of data fusion technologies, dynamically linked systems, social media collaboration technologies and ontological analysis systems. “We are also examining how these can be tied into the communications systems so that action teams can do their jobs,” said McCready. “The difficulty is that no one system can do it all, and therefore we are trying to understand how to take piece parts from different systems and merge them.”
Once the R&D center makes its assessments, they move down the line toward a possible formalized acquisition. “We are at the front end of helping the Coast Guard understand the technologies,” said McCready, “and closing the gap between existing capabilities and mission requirements.” ♦