BAE charts Coast Guard port security demo

BAE Systems North America Inc. won a $3.3 million contract from the Coast Guard's Research and Development Center to build a port security alert system.

BAE Systems North America Inc. won a $3.3 million contract from the Coast Guard's Research and Development Center to build a port security alert system, the company announced this week.

Under the contract, BAE Systems of Rockville, Md., will build and deploy the SeeCoast Port and Coastal Scene Awareness Prototype and Demonstration System.

The SeeCoast system will integrate radar data, video stream images and positioning information from an automatic identification system.

The system will provide an understanding of coastal and port security and enhance vessel detection, evaluation and tracking to support tactical analysis and intercept decisions.

SeeCoast will leverage BAE Systems' capabilities in video processing, track correlation and fusion, rule-based alerting and visualization.

The program is an outgrowth of the Automated Scene Understanding program at the Homeland Security Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The system will be installed in Homeland's Hawkeye test bed at Portsmouth, Va., and the Miami Coast Guard Sector Command Centers during the first 12 months of the contract.

BAE Systems North America has 30,000 employees and annual sales of $5.1 billion. It ranks No. 12 on Washington Technology's 2004 Top 100 list, which measures federal contracting revenue. The 2005 list will be released May 9.