With an estimated 90% of all illegal drugs that enter the U.S. passing through Mexico, and claims that many of the weapons seized from drug traffickers and at crime scenes in Mexico come from the U.S., it's obvious that the border between the countries needs more security.

A major factor driving this deadly exchange is the power of Mexican drug cartels in areas abutting the border. Violence linked to the cartels has killed more than 6,200 people in Mexico over the past year, including 522 military and law enforcement personnel, more than double the number in 2007.

Testifying before the House Appropriations Committee in March, David T. Johnson, assistant secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, warned that arms smuggled from the U.S. equip the cartels with "mines, antitank weapons, heavy machine guns, hand grenades and high-powered sniper rifles . . . . Smuggling also equips the cartels with night-vision goggles, electronic intercept capabilities, encrypted communications and helicopters."

Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Homeland Security Dept. (DHS), told the Homeland Security Committee on Feb. 25 that "Mexico . . . now has issues of violence that are a different degree and level than we've ever seen before."

The U.S. has been moving to shore up Mexico's government, military and police to battle the cartels. One of the main thrusts is the Merida Initiative, for which Congress appropriated $465 million in July 2008 for the first phase—$400 million for Mexico and $65 million for countries in Central America and the Caribbean to reform their judicial systems, weed out corrupt officials and reduce prison-gang activity, among other efforts.

The U.S. is also taking action on this side of the border through the $8-billion Secure Border Initiative (SBI) program of the DHS. Announced in November 2005, SBI focuses on securing U.S. borders though two primary segments: SBInet, which will use a networked series of stationary and truck-mounted radars, ground and air sensors, and cameras to monitor the border so U.S. agents can be dispatched to areas where the electronic gear detect activity. The second part is less high-tech. Called SBI Tactical Infrastructure, it includes fencing, roads and lighting to slow illegal movement across the border and allow agents to respond quickly to suspicious activity.

The wide-ranging program is getting underway in Arizona, in what U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBA) and its parent DHS call "Project 28." This focuses on a 28-mi. stretch of the border near Tucson that is being equipped with SBInet Block 1, which consists of fixed towers, day/night cameras, unattended ground sensors and radar. There is also a system of microwave antenna towers in place to retrieve data collected by the sensors and transmit them to a series of control stations that make up the program's communications backbone, which DHS officials liken to an army battalion headquarters.

Mark Borkowski, executive director of SBI, says the program has three components—personnel, technology and infrastructure. These "are combined in an optimal mix that is determined by the nature of specific sections of the border," he adds. Factors determining the mix include vulnerability, threats, geography and environment. The project, Borkowski says, seeks to establish "effective control of the border." For now, however, CBA is focusing on areas "between the [legal] ports of entry."

In September 2006, DHS awarded Boeing the contract to manage SBInet, and as of September 2008, Boeing had $933 million in task orders to complete the project, according to a 2008 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

The project has run into problems, however. The program was originally planned to deploy SBInet technology along the Mexican border by the end of 2008, but that has been bumped back to 2011.

Part of the issue was that the program is designed to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) camera and sensor technology. Jack Chenevey, Boeing's program manager for SBI, explains that "when you take a COTS radar that was built to be a standalone and try to incorporate it with a set of cameras that were designed to operate as standalones, it doesn't just snap together. You really have to characterize the hardware itself and understand how well they comply" with the standard the programs call for.

Still, Chenevey says the company has "learned a lot of lessons" using COTS, especially since Boeing is used to dealing with military specifications. The SBInet radar system uses ARSS Telephonics gear, while cameras are provided by Flir Systems.

The original Project 28 task order included deployment of nine mobile sensor towers with radar, cameras, satellite terminals and wireless access points, and communication kits installed in vehicles; unattended ground sensors; mobile command, control and communication units; and software to operate the system and provide a common operating picture.

Borkowski says that trying to synchronize COTS gear for the prototype created "a lot of confusion, and we had some problems messaging that. Boeing did install the prototype," he notes, but "it had issues and problems" and "didn't work the way we hoped it would." The problems, and the pushback from congressmen who were unhappy with the expense and the scheduling problems the issues created, made it "a tough lesson" for DHS and Boeing. "But it is working now," Borkowski says, and has become the basis of the long-term technology plan for the SBI program as a whole.

The problem, he adds, is that originally "we picked commercial cameras and radars that in some of those environments weren't the [best] choices . . . ."

In the original plan, camera towers, ground sensors and other surveillance equipment were designed to rely on satellite communications to network back to the ground stations, which would be manned by border control agents sifting through the data. But managers soon found that in such a fast-paced environment, where people and vehicles move rapidly through the desert, there was too much lag time between a sensor acquiring data, transmitting it to the station and agents slewing cameras around to follow movement. As a result, the program has switched to microwave communications, with better results.

There are still limitations with how the towers manage their networking operations. Areas of the border are broken down into sectors, each controlled by command posts, or stations, that monitor data for a given sector. Currently, the Block 1 system can't share information between command posts in different areas of operation, Borkowski says, though "there are opportunities for enhancement that can link [areas of responsibility], and perhaps up to the next echelon."

That problem aside, most of the outstanding issues found during early testing have been resolved, and the program is moving ahead with user-assessment tests in Playas, N.M. It's not a formal test, Borkowski stresses, but it gives program managers a better idea of how agents will use the technologies to carry out their mission.

In April, DHS began construction of the first SBInet Block 1 operational system in Arizona, in an area called Tucson 1. That will replace the Project 28 system, covering about 23 mi. of border. It will comprise nine sensor towers and eight relay towers, and should be completed by late summer or early fall. DHS will then have to go through the process of a formal operational test. In parallel with that, beginning around June, DHS and Boeing will start deployment to an area called Ajo 1 in Arizona, which will cover another 30 mi. of border.

Toward the end of 2009 or early in 2010, it will be determined if the system can be deployed through the rest of Arizona. "That should be completed by 2011 or 2012, depending on how our budget fleshes out," Borkowski says.

Photo: US Army