Blighter B400 Series PESA Radar Selected to Secure Perimeter at 2 International Airports in Paraguay

Blighter Surveillance Systems, a British electronic-scanning (e-scan) radar and sensor solution provider, has won a contract from Paraguay's National Civil Aviation Administration (DINAC) - via local security systems integrator Omni S.A. - to supply its Blighter B400 Series radar solution for enhanced security at the country's two busiest international airports.

The Blighter B400 Series passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radars are now deployed at Silvio Pettirossi International Airport, near Asunción in Western Paraguay and at Guarani International Airport located on the Eastern border in the city of Minga Guazú.

The Blighter solution consists of the Blighter B400 radar fitted with 20-degree antennas, BlighterTrack software and the BlighterView HMI control system. It is fully integrated with cameras from Liteye Systems providing the capability to slew-to-cue the PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) thermal imaging surveillance systems and to automatically initialise the CCTV recording system.

Blighter's electronic scanning technology with its FMCW Doppler fast scan capability performs well in cluttered airport environments, detecting small and slow moving targets with minimal false alarms. The Blighter radar can also be mounted high up on existing airport infrastructure thereby minimising installation costs and maximising surveillance as the radar can see over obstacles including aircraft and vehicles.

Jorge Alfonso Ramírez, vice president, Omni S.A., said "We needed a robust, reliable and maintenance free solution that could provide 24-hour surveillance across the airfield and airport perimeter in all weather and light conditions. Blighter exceeded our expectations and outperformed the other suppliers' systems. The benefits of the Blighter PESA e-scan radars are clear - superior performance, ease of installation onto existing infrastructure, intuitive operation, seamless integration with cameras - as well as lower installation costs, lower through life costs and lower false alarm rates."

Using Blighter's PESA technology, man detection ranges out to 3, 5 or 6.5 miles (5, 8 or 11 km) and ultra-wide elevation beams (up to 20 degrees) can be achieved.  This allows the radars to stand-off from the area to be monitored, for example mounted on top of existing airport buildings, giving clear line-of-sight to the airport perimeter, while still maintaining the full integrity of the radar coverage zone.  Being able to mount the sensors on the existing airport buildings, allows for ease of connection to readily available sources of power and network connectivity.

Mark Radford, CEO of Blighter Surveillance Systems, said: "We are delighted to have secured this contract for the two main airports in Paraguay, our first sale in South America. The significant benefits of the Blighter radar are now being recognised by busy international airports such as London Heathrow and others in the United States, Europe and Africa. We plan to build on this success in this region by targeting other airports and infrastructure sites - oil and gas facilities, mines and air bases that would clearly benefit from our advanced protection technology."

Blighter PESA radars are all-in-one integrated units comprising antennas, signal processing, plot extractor, GPS and compass. The radars contain no moving parts and therefore offer dramatic improvements in reliability compared with mechanically-scanned radars. Blighter radars provide modular scanning from 90º to a full 360º configuration in a single radar.

Blighter Surveillance Systems delivers an integrated multi-sensor package to systems integrators comprising the Blighter radars plus cameras, thermal imagers, trackers and software solutions. Its ITAR-free systems are used worldwide in commercial, government and defence markets in area and asset protection for national border security, homeland security, critical infrastructure protection such as airports, coastal surveillance, and in military applications.