Helena Regional Airport Test Site for High-Tech Security

Airport Test Site for High-Tech Security
Helena Independent Record, MT

02/12/04

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.

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; 
  

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.

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.



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