Today’s airports are big and they are busy. Covering huge areas while catering to the needs of thousands of people and massive cargo loads coming and going each and every day makes securing their boundaries against intrusion an extremely challenging operation. But there is plenty of equipment out there to help them
Perimeter security is clearly a major issue for any airport. The threats are many, the most obvious and potentially the most damaging being the risk of terrorist incursion. But potential aircraft stowaways, petty criminals and even kids messing about can all encroach onto airports’ landside and airside grounds.
Within the airport itself, of course, the danger still exists. Armed police (or military) patrols are a regular feature of many airports around the word, while the level of security checks required for any passenger to go airside is obvious evidence of the efforts to prevent unwanted intrusion into the secure airside areas of any gateway.
Airports go about preventing perimeter incursions in many ways – physical infrastructure in the form of walls, fences, gates and barbed wire; an ever-present security presence at points of ingress, supported perhaps by mobile patrols along fence lines; day cameras and electro-optics in the form of infra-red equipment that can penetrate the darkness of night; and even small, covert sensors that are not meant to be seen by those who would choose to penetrate the airport’s security.
VIDEO ANALYTICS
One of the areas of perimeter security in which there have been big strides in recent years is the field of video analytics – software that can interrogate what a camera sees and then alert an operator to any happenings or behaviours that might represent a cause for concern.
Amongst the leaders in this space is UK-based Digital Barriers, whose primary market has traditionally been the government, law enforcement and defence sectors, including key national infrastructure (KNI, within which the company includes transit systems and infrastructure such as airports). Its software analytics is all about “increasing the level of intelligence in surveillance architecture”, explains chief information officer Mark Patrick. “The key for us is to enable sensors – typically video cameras – to present information in a way that enables easy and quick decision-making.”
Analytics algorithms can be set up such that alerts are generated upon very specific events. In an airport context, this can range from external perimeter security breaches to left bags in terminal halls, individuals moving against the typical flow of passenger traffic, individuals loitering in a suspicious manner, or even children playing on carousels. Digital Barriers has also obviated the need for bored (and thus relatively ineffective) screen watchers in control rooms by running the analytics at the point of video capture – namely, the camera. This is what Patrick describes as delivery “on the edge”. Any alert can be passed to a personal handheld smart device carried by a security team member who may be going about his/her other work.
Digital Barriers has systems in place at airports across Europe, the US, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. In the latter case, it is helping to secure one of the world’s latest and most impressive airports – Hamad International in Doha. Demand for this sort of technology from airports is growing, Patrick insists, partly because of the increasing threat from terrorism but partly because it allows for increased capability simultaneous with lower costs in the form of decreased manpower requirements.
SENSORS
Before the analytics come the sensors. CCTV and electro-optics are available in many forms, for the defence and security market (typically facility and base security) as well as for the mass consumer market (retail premises and the like). Airports can choose what is right for them. Deterrence is perhaps as important as the technology itself, but the quality and sophistication now available is extremely impressive.
FLIR, known for its infra-red cameras and thermography equipment designed for military and security applications, offers a number of sensor systems particularly pertinent to airport perimeter security. Many installations incorporate FLIR’s ground-based radar that can be used in conjunction with the company’s medium-to-long-range multi-sensor pan/tilt systems.
‘Multi-sensor’ in this context means that there is both a thermal imager and a high-performance day/night imager working in concert, explains FLIR Commercial Systems’ vice president North America field sales – security & surveillance, Matt Bretoi. The multi-sensor pan/tilt responds to input from the radar, tracking the subject of interest automatically. “This is a powerful combination, providing optimal detection, geo-referencing, and visual assessment and verification,” he notes.
Another option that has proved popular to airports has been the creation of a ‘fence’ of fixed thermal imagers used in conjunction with the sort of intelligent analytics software provided by Digital Barriers. “This can be a very effective method of automated detection and alarming of events along the perimeter, as well as other areas of concern such as the fuel depot,” Bretoi explains. He believes that the latest generation of analytics software has become “quite intelligent and reliable, and offers many of the same benefits of radar, but with more flexibility”. While Oregon, US-headquartered FLIR is certainly best-known for its thermal imaging solutions, it is also a manufacturer of high-performance IP and analogue cameras. He believes that these represent a more than useful complement for maximising identification and forensic capabilities.
A wide range of sensors and cameras can be deployed in conjunction to provide a layered defence inside or outside an airport perimeter. Digital Barriers has even sold small, unattended ground sensors to airports who feel threatened by potential terrorist attack. These are easily deployable and redeployable as circumstances and requirements change; they can be overt or covert and can be used to secure dead ground around the perimeter. They can also be deployed beyond the perimeter ring – perhaps 500 to 1,000m out where space allows – in order to offer a degree of advance warning of attack.
MILITARY QUALIFIED
Many of the systems that businesses sell into the airport security market have evolved from use in military applications. Indeed, FLIR specifically says that its products are “commercially developed, military qualified.” However, its products, and those of other manufacturers who have typically expanded away from the military market into the civilian space, often evolve or are adapted in order to directly address the needs of critical infrastructure customers. The civilian market, including airports, will have different requirements in terms of installation and communications, as well as performance specifications and certifications.
Certainly, just because of the sheer size of airport perimeters, communications and power can be an issue. Some airports have fibre-optic communications all the way around their property, but many are dependent on other forms of communication, notably wireless. Because of this, installation and infrastructure represent a larger than average percentage of the project cost when it comes to sensors and cameras. According to Bretoi, that is where the use of strategically located radar and mid-to-long-range multi-sensor pan/tilt systems can provide a good return on investment. However, he says, the shape of the perimeter, size, and terrain (is there line of sight to the perimeter, for example?), will determine the best solution. (FLIR’s own airport customers range from the very large, such as Dallas/Fort Worth and New York City gateways to smaller airports such as Sarasota in Florida and Huntsville in Alabama.)
FLIR’s systems have most commonly been used for securing the general outer perimeter that borders airport runways. However, other critical areas such as fuel depots are also protected by its systems at various gateways. Additionally, some airports monitor entry into parking zones from the road, specifically watching for people walking onto airport property at night. This is both a safety issue as well as a concern for break-ins and other crimes. Highly visible cameras are a frequent choice for such systems, as well as for airside or terminal operations that are designed to be seen and deter incursions.
BARRIERS AND BOLLARDS
Gates and barriers are an accepted feature of pretty much all facilities catering to large numbers of comings and goings. Though they may interrupt the smooth flow of people on foot or of vehicles, they are an absolutely necessary means to slow the traffic and allow security details to identify, vet and if necessary search those entering secure areas of an airport.
As well as the human element, devices to check incoming cargo for dangerous items are a feature of many gateways at their perimeter. These can range from large fixed installations checking vehicles for illegal materials to handheld wands to swipe smaller items or people.
Installations such as fixed bollards are also now a commonplace around many airports to deter and, if necessary, prevent vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) from going where they shouldn’t and from ramming vulnerable infrastructure and buildings. The terrorist attack on the UK’s Glasgow International in 2007 that involved a vehicle being rammed against the glass doors of the airport and then being set alight was prevented from making any further headway by the presence of fixed bollards acting as a secure barrier.
Avon Barrier Company is one of the bigger names in this form of physical protection. Although based in Bristol in the UK, 80% of its business is international and historically it has been at the forefront of the development of hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) units, explains managing director Paul Jeffrey.
He is convinced that UK airports have generally taken a big lead on the threat facing them from hostile vehicle incursions – especially London Heathrow which, as the UK’s busiest and biggest aviation hub, has been in the vanguard on this. The 2007 Glasgow attack certainly prompted further defensive measures on the part of UK airports (and Avon Barrier saw a consequent, notable increase in demand for its products in the aftermath of that incident), but even before that the bigger UK gateways had begun to erect bollards and other barriers to protect their main entrances from vehicle-based attacks.
Such measures now protect the main terminal entrances at Heathrow and at some other airports a similar same sort of protection does not seem to have been implemented.
But it’s not just main entrances that need to be protected. Avon is amongst the companies now being approached to protect other routes of ingress, such as cargo terminal and VIP entrance gates. Moreover, the whole fence line of an airport is a possible access route for a determined attacker. Most airport perimeter fences will not stop a vehicle travelling at high speed, and the potential threat to airport infrastructure, perhaps to a fully fuelled aircraft full of passengers on the ramp or on a stand, doesn’t bear thinking about.
Hence the increasing demand for additional fence line protection. Bristorm, a Hill & Smith trading division, is amongst the companies to offer HVM protection for anti-ram perimeter security that is being taken up by the airport community. Its Anti Vehicle Fence consists of high-tensile steel ropes fixed to steel posts that can be added as extra layers of protection either outside the fence line or within it (useful if there is a danger of the fence being cut prior to a ramming attack). Fences that can be approached at speed by cars on roads perpendicular to the fence line are particularly threatened.
Where the threat is high, numerous gateways outside the UK have of course also responded by adding to their perimeter protection. Avon Barrier has, for example, handled a big project at the Philippines’ Manila International Airport and also provided perimeter security systems for Algiers’ international airport some years back.
INCREASING ACTIVITY
Airports are generally becoming more active in upgrading their perimeter security, FLIR’s Bretoi agrees. “There seems to be a stronger emphasis and awareness among airport directors – add in what seems to be an increase in government grants/funding and we are seeing a lot of activity,” he insists.
The options for any airport looking to cope with the issues of perimeter security are manifold. It’s obviously a critical issue for them, not least in the nations threatened directly by terrorism. Few airport authorities are willing to say much about how they try to ensure the integrity of their perimeters – a number declined point blank, perhaps very understandably – to discuss the issue with Airside – other than to say how seriously they take security and that they continuously consider possible enhancements in this area.
One who would say a few words was Denver International Airport, the US’s fifth-busiest air gateway and a massive facility that covers an area of 137.8 square kilometres (53 square miles/34,000 acres). It has – like most airports – adopted a layered approach to the problem of perimeter security. While the gateway was not prepared to discuss the details of that approach, citing it as SSI, or sensitive security information, a spokesperson did note that a dedicated airport security team is of course on constant alert. Moreover: “The entire airport community is responsible for ensuring the safety and security of the airport through a layered security approach.”
Such an approach is common amongst airport authorities. Like safety, security is regarded as everyone’s business – not just for those that work at the gateway but also for those passengers and freight operators who pass through it. Given the ever-increasing danger that we all face today from militants of all kinds, it’s an approach that most can buy into.