Protection of critical infrastructure - present and future solutions
Without energy, transport, water, food, information exchange, financial systems and health systems, citizens' living standards would be gravely compromised
Failures of one of these critical infrastructures or services can arise from very different sources, for example terrorism, natural disasters, or industrial hazards and on very different scales (from local to national or even trans-national causes or impact).
In all cases, the state as well as the provider have to take care for a quick and effective relief to the population. There is a growing demand for critical infrastructure protection for energy facilities, oil and gas refineries as well as offshore platforms or pipelines, nuclear power plants and water reservoirs. Here, the objective is to ensure an adequate and necessary level of security while at the same time maintaining economic operability.
EADS Defence & Security is offering its customers comprehensive and tailored solutions that combine the know-how to design, develop and implement lead system integration (LSI) solutions. The company has been leading for years LSI approach to fulfil the need for military customers for new capabilities to perform their mission. Effectiveness is no longer a question of how many assets are deployed but rather on the most efficient combined use of all resources to deliver the right response to a mission on time. These new concepts, such as network centric operation or information centric warfare, and the skills and competences acquired during the last decade for defence together with secure communications networks are key for the success of large security projects.
One result of a typical asymmetric threat is terrorism in one's native country. This subsequently leads to a merging of internal and international security. EADS Defence & Security is concentrating on precisely these two aspects of national security. Here, many years of experience from the military field are being put to use in the development of new approaches to internal security.
The PPSL project is an example of the use of tailored military solutions in internal security. PPSL (Pôle Pilote de Sécurité Locale) is a pilot project being run in cooperation with two towns on the outskirts of Paris and in which new operational concepts and innovative technologies are being developed and tested for the police. These include target tracking by means of video in urban environments, the combination of a wide range of sensor data, the use of drones for police and fire brigade tasks, geo-localisation, mobile video applications and many others. Simulation and training tools are also used which were developed for military applications and now being used in an adapted form for the training of non-military security forces.
Another focal point of the Global Security unit of EADS Defence & Security is the securing of critical infrastructure in aviation and commercial shipping: For example, it was responsible for equipping the section of Tegel Airport in Berlin that is used by the special air mission unit of the German Air Force with state-of-the-art security technology. Alongside protecting the perimeter and border between land side and air side, ensuring access control, person and vehicle controls and supplying video technology, special mobile sensors are used for the securing of parked aircraft. In this project, EADS Defence & Security also assumed responsibility for operation and maintenance of the systems as well as personal surveillance.
In the Tanger Med project, EADS Defence & Security was commissioned to secure the new port currently being constructed at Tangier in Morocco. This project is a particular challenge, as the majority of the port sections (container terminal, passenger terminal, general cargo, free-trade zone) and their perimeter make it difficult to implement the ISPS code. For the maritime surveillance, especially of the ships anchored in the roadstead and other smaller vessels with respect to the prevention of smuggling and illegal immigration, radars are used which were tested by the military and adapted for civil use.
The securing of an industrial complex near Seville is a special case. In addition to the intruder detection system, which also needs to incorporate the surveillance of classified objects, perimeter protection and video technology, the access control system is particularly worthy of mention here. Thanks to this system, Group employees all over the world can access the facility and certain objects on a time-dependent basis. The relevant data is stored on a database server located in the UK and access rights are administered so that employees can access all the plants of the Group that they have been approved for by using just one company badge. Also important is the state-of-the-art security control centre which, acting as a C3I system, combines all information and provides this information to the operator via an interface on a video wall. This significantly relieves the workload on staff, especially in stress situations.
Reference projects include securing military facilities in Germany (26 major projects in Germany), EADS Defence & Security construction sites in Spain (Seville) and other critical infrastructure such as the Euro Repository of the German Central Bank.
EADS Defence & Security
