BAE SYSTEMS Receives U.S. Coast Guard Contract for Port Security Demonstration System.

BURLINGTON, Mass. -- BAE Systems has received a contract from the U.S. Coast Guard's Research and Development Center to build the SeeCoast Port and Coastal Scene Awareness Prototype and Demonstration System. The program, valued at $3.3 million including options, is part of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) Automated Scene Understanding program.

The SeeCoast system will integrate radar track data, video image streams, positioning information from an Automatic Identification System (AIS), and other data inputs, to provide machine understanding of the coastal and port security scene and enhance vessel detection, evaluation, and tracking in support of tactical analysis and intercept decisions. SeeCoast will leverage existing BAE Systems capabilities in video processing, track correlation and fusion, rule-based alerting, and visualization. It will use advanced learning methods based on human cognitive processing models to enable continuous, on-the-fly learning of anomalous activities.

"SeeCoast will provide a critical capability for helping to secure our ports and harbors," said Dr. Nils R. Sandell, Jr., BAE Systems' vice president and general manager for Advanced Information Technologies in Burlington, Mass. "The system will build upon capabilities developed across the company under a number of Department of Defense research projects. We appreciate HSARPA and the Coast Guard's confidence in the BAE Systems' team and are looking forward to working with them to prototype and demonstrate this important capability."

SeeCoast will be installed in the DHS Hawkeye test bed at the Portsmouth, Va., and Miami Coast Guard Sector Command Centers during the first 12 months of the contract.

BAE Systems is an international company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defense and aerospace systems in the air, on land, at sea and in space. BAE Systems North America is one of America's foremost national security, aerospace and information systems companies.