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Helena Regional Airport test site for high-tech security

The Helena Regional Airport Authority and its high-technology partners have reached new heights in developing and implementing a cyber-age security system that will serve as a model for airports around the nation.

"We’re addressing one of the toughest security problems facing airports, namely, how do you keep intruders out of places where they don’t belong without huge expenditures in personnel and infrastructure?" said Ron Mercer, director of the Helena Regional Airport Authority.

BY SHAWN WHITE WOLF – IR Staff Writer

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/02/12/helena_top/a01021204_04.txt

The "Distributed Ad-hoc Intelligent Sensor-Intrusion Detection System," upon completion, will serve as a model for airports around the country.

The proposed system incorporates several emerging technologies including:

A "self-configuring, self-healing network" for communicating sensor data that scales up or down in size as sensors are added or removed;

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Intelligent sensor data fusion software that developers say can autonomously identify real security threats without intruding on normal airport operations;

A "biometrically enabled" radio frequency ID card with built-in fingerprint verification to transmit validated IDs to the system for flexible access to secure areas.

"Helena is becoming a state-of-the-art testing bed," Mercer said Wednesday. "The work done in Helena will tie into other research projects from government to the private sector in the areas of security."

Mercer said the $1.2 million dollar project was funded by a nationwide competitive grant from the Transportation Security Administration.

"HRAA competed with both small and large airports from around the country; only eight airports were funded," said Mercer.

A significant factor of this project is the half dozen organizations and companies from Montana to the East Coast that joined forces to create a strong technical team that the federal government determined, over many other teams nationwide, was innovative in problem solving.

The project is being led by G5 Technologies of Cherry Hill, N.J., and the Sarnoff Corporation of Princeton, N.J., is providing enabling technology.

Montana-based companies and organizations include Industrial Automation Controls, GCS Research, Salish and Kootenai Electronics and the RAVE Technical Development Center at Montana Tech of the University of Montana.

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GCS Research http://gcs-research.com/ has recently moved into new offices. GCS Research is now headquartered in the Montana Technology Enterprise Center, MONTEC http://www.montec.org/ .

Their address is:

GCS Research

1121 East Broadway

Suite 113

MonTEC

Missoula, MT 59802

Phone: 406-532-3254

406-532-3255 (Fax)

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Program Manager Ray Wallace, a representative of G5 Technologies, Inc., said the purpose of the DAIS-IDS is to make sure that the people authorized to be somewhere are the only ones there.

"We are testing various automated technologies to have the ability to find bad guys near an airport," said Wallace.

Wallace said the IDs are about as thick as three credit cards side by side, but can hold a person’s fingerprint, photo, and other security information.

Each person authorized to be in the areas of the planes and landing ramps will be required to have on hand their IDs.

"The key to the system, the fingerprint card that allows or denies access, can’t be faked by counterfeiters, and it can’t be transferred to somebody else," said Dave Zish, director of business development at Sarnoff, in a press release.

Mercer highlighted that the security system would be different that other types of systems because of its ability to think on its own.

"One sensor will be able to communicate to another sensor and be able to determine if the person is authorized to be there or not," said Mercer. "It can also detect if animals are nearby, which is something that you don’t want."

For example, if a person were to walk into a restricted area the system will verify whether a person should be there through a fingerprint recognition sensor that only authorized users will carry.

"With DAIS-IDs, if someone without the proper authorization tries to enter a restricted area, wireless detectors will alert us," said Mercer.

The security system will be installed, tested, and evaluated at the HRAA over the next 12 to 18 months.

Reporter Shawn White Wolf can be reached at 447-4028 or [email protected].

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