6-15-05
Work Continues on Maritime Surveillance System for Lake Erie
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Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is the lead researcher on a project that will help make Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes safer for the people who live in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Partnering with two of its outreach centers, the Center for e-Business and Advanced Information Technology (eBizITPA) and the Center for Navigation, Communication, and Information Systems (CNCIS), the college is assisting in the development of a maritime surveillance system that will provide law enforcement and other government agencies with intelligence to help identify illegal and terrorist-related activities along the northern border of the United States. |
The venture-known as the Great Lakes C4I Surveillance Center project-will include several public and private partners including the Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies and Observation Technologies of Philadelphia, Pa. C4I stands for computers, communication, command, control, and information.
One of the goals of this project is to develop an information correlation center in Erie County, Pennsylvania, in order to disseminate high quality, reliable, and properly classified data to relevant agencies.
"The C4I project will be implemented in four phases," said Gerry Schneggenburger, manager of advanced IT development for eBizITPA. "In the first phase, we'll test existing radar capabilities, research performance in various weather conditions with different types of boats, and begin to create new digital procedures, called algorithms, to predict and identify non-compliant activity. Such activity includes the collision of two boats, the entry of a boat into a non-encroachment area, and cross-border detection of boats that don't check into a border patrol entry point. Now that the weather is improving, Penn State Behrend professors Bob Gray and Tom Hemminger and their students can begin their research." Schneggenburger says that more than one-third of the first phase is complete, and second phase development has been proposed to Congress and the Department of Defense.
While the proposed C4I project will play an important role in national security, it will have a direct impact on a local level as well, according to Schneggenburger. The Erie Coast Guard station will be able to know the GPS location of distressed boaters in inclement weather and Presque Isle Park officials will be able to locate boats that are beached on -more-
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environmentally sensitive areas at the Park. The Erie-Western Pennsylvania Port Authority may also benefit as they are able to track the flow of vessels in and out of Presque Isle Bay, right down to the marina level at different times and days of the week.
"One of the most important benefits of this project is that local college students are involved," said Schneggenburger. "Interns and graduate students working on this project will get great experience that will help them as they look for jobs after graduation."
Funding for Phase One was provided by grants from Pennsylvania's Department of Community and Economic Development and the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Erie County Competitive Grant Fund and eBizITPA. Phase One includes gathering test data north of Presque Isle, including the maneuvering of test boats five, ten, and fifteen miles out into the lake. Radar data will be converted to digital format for analysis by Penn State Behrend engineering faculty and students.
Phase One also includes using video cameras, GPS and inertial equipment in test boats to research mapping systems and predictive models. This research will help answer whether or not commercially available radar systems can be used to predict boat size, composition and non-compliant boat activity.
Phase Two will take what is learned in phase one and apply it in the development of software that will provide surveillance in the northeast part of Lake Erie, from London, Ontario to Buffalo to Erie. Phase Three will include data "fusion," which integrates and processes information from multiple radar antennae and digital surveillance sensors on a central computer system.
The final aim-Phase Four-of the Great Lakes C4I project is to have all five Great Lakes equipped with tower-based radar antenna and digital sensors which feed data into a central surveillance center in Erie, where automated systems would disseminate classified data and information to relevant agencies. Schneggenburger estimates that the total project will take four to five years to complete, depending upon the availability of federal funding.
"The Great Lakes C4I project will make a significant difference for Erie," said Schneggenburger. "It will mean jobs, student internships, government work and contracts for faculty at local colleges and universities, increased technical development for colleges and local companies, and a technology that will become vital to national security and regional safety. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved."