New radars placed aboard unmanned aircraft on U.S. borders.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been flying unmanned aerial vehicles on the U.S. border for six years now and the aircraft are in more demand than ever, said the chief of the agencies' aviation office.

And they are not just for keeping tabs on illegal migrants and drug smugglers.

The seven Predator B and Reaper class medium altitude, long-endurance UAVs in the CBP fleet have been used by the Drug Enforcement Agency for surveillance and interdictions in the Caribbean, the Forestry Service to detect fires and by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to monitor flood damage in the nation's interior, said Michael Kostelnik, CBP assistant commissioner and head of the agency's air and marine office.

Two new radars are being employed. The first is a SeaVue radar built by Raytheon, which has allowed CBP and the Coast Guard to fly joint missions in the Gulf of Mexico and in the waters around the Bahamas. It has been installed on the new maritime version of the Reaper, called the Guardian.

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CBP is also assisting the Army in testing its experimental Vader radar, which can detect slow moving objects in all weather. It can track multiple dismounted targets such as drug smugglers or illegal migrants.

"Something that can see through all weather and track people on the ground obviously would have a lot of charm for us," Kostelnik said. "The system is working. It has already proven itself on immigration detection missions on the Southwest border."

There were no requirements for an unmanned aerial vehicle on the border when CBP first began flying the Predator. It was a technology "push" initially, hut that is rapidly becoming a technology "pull," he said.

With the seven aircraft currently in the fleet, CBP can pull a UAV from border patrol duties, get an emergency authorization from the...