Military weapons adapted for port defense.

• Author: Rusling, Matthew
• Position: Port Security

Technologies that for decades have been tested and deployed by the U.S. military are now being tailored for use by the Department of Homeland Security to protect the nation's ports. Among them are radar, unmanned patrol boats, underwater sensors and nonlethal crowd-control weapons.

The detection of potential terrorists aboard small boats is one of DHS' top priorities, said officials. This is a tough technical challenge because traditional maritime sensors are effective at finding large vessels but may not always see the fast-moving undersized boats that terrorists have used in suicide attacks, said Tim Gale, chief executive of Kelvin Hughes USA.

The company developed a "Sharp Eye" radar that was designed to detect small craft, he said. The system uses transistor-based "solid state" technology, which enables the device to send a more coherent wave and deliver an improved radar picture, Gale said.

"So what you put out is by comparison very clean, as opposed to being an indiscriminate bunch of energy that is just thrown out and bounces off of things," Gale said.

Using the X-band frequency in sea state five--storm-like conditions with up to 16 millimeters of rainfall per hour--it can detect small craft six nautical miles away, Gale said. Traditional radars cover only three to four miles, he said. The S-band ranges up to seven miles.

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"Say you detect a target moving 15 or 20 knots and coming straight for you ... If you only detect it half a mile away, you don't have a lot of time to react," Gale said.

The Navy currently is evaluating this technology, Gale said.

Unmanned patrol boats also could help the Coast Guard expand its reach, according to General Dynamics, which has built two high-speed, 11-meter unmanned surface vessels for the Navy.

"They can come up and examine a small boat," said Jack Flanagan, director of maritime systems at General Dynamics Robotic Systems.

The unmanned boat has a payload capacity of 5,000 pounds, can operate continuously for more than 24 hours and reach speeds of more than 35 knots. The firm is also developing a 7-meter craft.

The boats could be programmed to target vessels that are not equipped with the Automatic Identification System--a communication transponder that recognizes a vessel's position, speed, destination and cargo...