Government funding for the security at shipping facilities and ports is limited so there is a need for low cost scalable security systems. With over 20 million sea, truck, and rail containers entering the United States every year, these facilities pose a large risk to security. Securing these facilities and monitoring the variety of traffic that enter and leave is a major task. To accomplish this, the authors have developed and fielded a low cost fully distributed building block approach to port security at the inland Port of Catoosa in Oklahoma. Based on prior work accomplished in the design and fielding of an intelligent transportation system in the United States, functional building blocks, (e.g. Network, Camera, Sensor, Display, and Operator Console blocks) can be assembled, mixed and matched, and scaled to provide a comprehensive security system. The following functions are demonstrated and scaled through analysis and demonstration: Barge tracking, credential checking, container inventory, vehicle tracking, and situational awareness. The concept behind this research is "any operator on any console can control any device at any time."

Date Published: 5 May 2010
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7666, Sensors, and Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) Technologies for Homeland Security and Homeland Defense IX, 76662J (5 May 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.851167

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7666:
Sensors, and Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) Technologies for Homeland Security and Homeland Defense IX
Edward M. Carapezza, Editor(s)