Jul 6 2013
I made a special trip to Prescott, Arizona last week to meet with Richard McCreight (Co-Founder) of IDENT a manned and unmanned aerial intelligence services company to get a peek preview of Team Mosquito's proprietary human recognition system being tested for border patrol.
While IDENT, LLC has corporate offices in Jacksonville, FL they have a sciences and solutions lab in Prescott, AZ where they do testing and development of airborne surveillance systems.
I first wanted to know why IDENT felt that there was a need to build a new system when the current FLIR (forward- looking-infra-red) devices seem to be doing the trick. In other words….if it's not broke, why fix it? Mr. McCreight, being a scientist and long-time pioneer in near earth orbital sciences, spent the next 15 minutes explaining how FLIR is indeed a wonderful system for particular needs. He then reminded me that with technology rapidly changing today, new systems are constantly being brought to the marketplace that far exceeds the current capabilities of expensive point and shoot FLIR technologies. He said whiles many companies are still working on the latest and greatest options in forward looking devices, the problem is their entry costs are expensive and they have a very limited field of view. "It's like looking through a soda straw to find something of interest", Mr. McCreight stated.
Mr. McCreight further points out that while there is a definite place for FLIR it is not always the best solution for Mexican/US border patrol. "Having been on actual night time patrols with US government agencies, I observed that FLIR systems have a very hard time telling the difference between humans and cactus plants during certain times of the year. The problem is that the heat signature of cactus and humans have very little to no temperature differentiation. As a result, one of the reasons the current drone systems patrolling the border have such a poor efficiency rating of only 22% interdicting smugglers is because FLIR is being used to track people only after their locations are reported. What is needed is an affordable way to detect and track multiple smugglers over large areas."
Mr. McCreight showed very promising results using new technologies built by IDENT and their team enterprise partners that will indeed change the way camera systems are used to detect and track smugglers. Mr. McCreight says "we believe that we have developed the perfect solution to pick up illegal activities over wide areas and multiple locations along the Mexican / US border. We are currently refining the software for automated image processing and reporting, but soon will be implementing final touches on the already field tested system." He expects that about ¼ of the IDENT aircraft fleet will have these system installed within the next few months.
While it is too early to tell what the success will be, IDENT seems to be ahead of others in thinking outside the box for ways to dramatically improve border control while greatly reducing the cost to tax payers.