HOMELAND SECURITY

27 Mar 08. Cobham plc delivered the tenth and final new border patrol surveillance aircraft to the Australian Border Protection Command, under the AUS$1bn, 12 year Sentinel project. Federal Minister for Home Affairs, the Hon. Bob Debus, accepted the aircraft in a ceremony at Adelaide Airport, in the presence of senior Border Protection Command personnel, project partners and Cobham employees. Cobham will operate the ten Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft from its existing bases in Broome, Darwin and Cairns, providing all weather, day and night electronic surveillance of Australia’s maritime Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Each aircraft will be capable of searching an area of more than 110,000 square kilometres per flight using new generation surveillance sensors and advanced satellite communications systems. Each aircraft will also act as a live link in a national data communications chain, with the customer receiving a stream of timely, high quality surveillance information, enabling them to make informed border security decisions in real time.

24 Mar 08. Raytheon Company has developed and demonstrated a rapid concrete breaking technology to advance capabilities for urban search and rescue teams in disaster situations. The Controlled Impact Rescue Tool, or CIRT, uses shock waves to pulverize concrete, which enables rescue workers to remove the material more quickly than using existing techniques. “This revolutionary approach decreased by 50 percent the time it takes to reach a victim trapped by concrete, increasing the probability of a successful rescue,” said Guy DuBois, vice president of Raytheon’s Operational Technologies and Solutions business. Developed under the rapid technology application program of the Department of
Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, the rapid breaching
technology meets the need for increased speed in breaching concrete walls and
barriers.