Aug 30, 2007 @ 10:50 PM

By ROCCO LaDUCA

Utica (NY) Observer-Dispatch

First came the radar gun for police road patrols.

Then came the ability to transmit the driver’s background information by a vehicle-mounted computer.

Now, the newest tool allows officers to scan a motorist’s license plate to check for suspended or revoked registrations, arrest warrants and stolen cars.

Known as the Mobile Plate Hunter 900, the device already is being used by area agencies, including Utica, New Hartford sheriff’s deputies and the state police.

The recognition device, which reads a vehicle’s license plate via a scanning camera, has proven to be an efficient and nonintrusive tool that lets police monitor hundreds of vehicles everyday while officers continue to go about their normal patrol duties, officials agree.

It not only is beneficial for daily routine patrols, but also was used in a local murder case last November.

When Scott Herman had just brutally murdered his 82-year-old grandmother in Rome, state police pondered whether the known reclusive suspect may attempt to flee the area in a stolen car.

“When people are desperate, they do desperate things, and stealing a car is definitely a desperate thing,” state police Capt. Frank Coots said.

While the device did not lead police to Herman, Coots said such an example highlights the potential this technology offers local law enforcement agencies.

“This is another example of technology as a work-force multiplier in law enforcement by allowing our officers to be much more efficient in getting bad people and bad drivers off the road,” New Hartford police Chief Raymond Philo said.

But such efficiency comes at the expense of every motorist’s civil right to avoid police surveillance unless a law has been violated, officials with the New York Civil Liberties Union argue.

“Police really should be in the business of investigating crimes, not tracking law-abiding citizens,” said Barrie Gewanter, executive director of the Central New York Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“When we are driving and we are always having our licenses plates examined, then everybody on the road is being treated as a suspect,” she said.

How it works

Police officials acknowledge the license plate recognition device – like each new technology in law enforcement – comes with its own potential for legal issues, such as Gewanter’s concern.

But the way a mobile license plate reader, also called an LPR, is used takes every precaution to avoid violating someone’s rights, officials said.

As New Hartford police Officer Matt Sica drove up Oneida Street last week, the two LPR cameras mounted atop his patrol vehicle simultaneously scanned roughly 150 passing license plates in about 15 minutes. While Sica paid attention to his surroundings, the LPR would beep every time it photographed a passing car’s license plate.

The LPR then interpreted the letters and numbers of the license plate while comparing it to a “hot list” database compiled by the state Department of Motor Vehicles and state Division of Criminal Justice Services. If the LPR detected a revoked license or stolen vehicle, for example, the device would sound a specific alert.

It would then be up to that officer to determine if the LPR accurately detected a possible violation and whether further investigation or an arrest was necessary, officials explained. In some cases, the LPR would misread the license plate, and in other cases it may not be possible to locate the matching vehicle amidst heavy traffic, they said.

“The human factor is always going to be an important component of law enforcement,” New Hartford police Lt. Timothy O’Neill said.

Netting scofflaws

An LPR can scan roughly 1,000 license plates an hour, officials said, and that helps detect plenty of issues that officers may not particularly be aware of, officials said.

While the LPR can be used to target vehicles linked to specific individuals, such as suspected terrorists or kidnappers identified during Amber Alerts, the device’s overall use has much broader impact, officials said.

Particularly when it comes to people driving either with a suspended or revoked license or without insurance, officials said.

“You don’t know the aggravation you have to go through until your vehicle is hit by an uninsured driver,” Philo said. “We’ve got to get those people off the road.”

According to Utica police, their LPR scanned about 400 license plates and detected 19 suspended or revoked registrations between January and March. A stolen vehicle and a stolen license plate were recovered, and eight people wanted on arrest warrants were located, police said.

The Oneida County Sheriff’s Office has been just as successful using the device, which each agency has received through a grant issued by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

More than 100,000 plates were scanned by the sheriff patrol’s LPR during the first six months of this year, resulting in 143 suspended or revoked registrations being located and 40 arrests, including four people wanted on warrants and two drunken driving suspects, Undersheriff M. Peter Paravati said.

“It would take our work force days and days to read 1,200 to 1,300 license plates if that’s all they did, so it’s like having the value of one to two more deputies per day,” Paravati said. “And when you get a hit, it could potentially lead you beyond vehicle and traffic violations to more serious crimes quickly and efficiently.”

In New Hartford, as well, police have charged people with drunken driving and marijuana possession this summer after the department’s LPR detected them driving without insurance.

The shadow of ‘Big Brother’

Nevertheless, civil liberties experts still believe license plate recognition technology is taking “proactive policing” too far.

Gewanter of the New York Civil Liberties Union recently voiced two particular points of concern:

— Every photographed image is kept in a database for possible reference at a later date, perhaps to determine if a particular vehicle has previously passed through an area.

“Just because we have greater technology and more capacity doesn’t mean the police need to use it to create databases of everybody driving on the road,” Gewanter said.

Putting the concern of uninsured drivers in perspective, she added, “Just because there’s a problem is not a justification for Big Brother to be watching everybody’s car on every road at all times.”

—There’s no guarantee the person driving the vehicle is responsible for whatever wrongdoing that may be detected by the LPR.

“Spotting a license plate is not equivalent to spotting a criminal,” she said.

Police officials, however, agree that LPRs are merely a more technologically-advanced version of an old-fashion road block, only less intrusive.

They also note the device only detects vehicles that are already presumed to be operating under some legal violation.

“This is as little evasive as possible,” state police Capt. Coots said. “We’re not stopping anyone, we’re not detaining anyone. We’re only doing what is easily observable anyway.”

Then Coots added: “A lot of people forget that operating a motor vehicle in New York state is a privilege, as opposed to a right. We respect people’s privacy, but we also have an obligation to detect and deter crimes, and this is just another tool to do that.”

Defense News
By ANDREW CHUTER, LONDON

AgustaWestland helicopter boss Alan Johnston is set to become the chief executive of the British naval shipbuilding joint venture announced by BAE Systems and the VT Group in late July.

The appointment has yet to be officially announced, but a spokesman for the two naval shipbuilders confirmed the move Aug. 2.

“We will announce further details about the JV [joint venture] in due course,” said the spokesman.

Further managerial appointments are expected over the next few weeks. Sir John Parker, the ex-Harland & Wolff and British Shipbuilders senior director, is tipped to take the post of chairman.

Johnston has already resigned his position as the head of military programs and the managing director of U.K. operations at the Italian-owned helicopter manufacturer.

Graham Cole, AgustaWestland’s senior vice president for external affairs, will temporarily take over Johnston’s posts until a successor is named.

Johnston has wide experience in naval shipbuilding. He worked in the British and South African naval industries before joining what was then GKN Westland Helicopters in 1995. His final posting was submarine construction director at nuclear submarine builder VSEL in Barrow, subsequently acquired by BAE. The nuclear submarine operation is not part of the merger plan.

Guy Griffith, the former chief operating officer of MBDA and the man originally earmarked for the job as chief executive of the merged operation, is to stay at BAE, where he arrived earlier this year as the boss of the company’s Integrated System Technologies business. Industry insiders said he had been parked in the post whilst the merger details were resolved.

The two shipbuilding companies announced July 25 they would merge their surface-ship operations into a single, 50/50-owned company.

The deal, which remains subject to approval, brings together two BAE yards on the River Clyde in Scotland and the VT yard at Portsmouth in southern England in what will be Britain’s sole surface warship building company of any consequence.

Avionews

Rome, Italy - Other Finmeccanica companies involved in the aircraft production are Selex Communications and Selex Sensors & Airborne Systems

(WAPA) - “The first of the five block 5 Eurofighter Typhoons for the Italian Air Force has entered into service.

The five block 5 Eurofighters, whose configuration represents a further progress in terms of functionality and operational capability, will complete, during 2007, the deliveries of the 29 aircraft of the tranche 1 production, envisaged for the Italian Air Force.

The Typhoon, in this new version, not only represents the final standard of the tranche 1, but also offers the same features of the initial configuration of the second production batch, whose deliveries are planned starting from 2008. Furthermore the block 5 configuration is the reference for the updating of all aircraft delivered to AMI to date. Currently two aircraft are undergoing retrofit at Alenia Aeronautica’s Caselle plant and the first aircraft will be delivered to AMI during the first quarter of 2008.

The block 5 Typhoons are the first to be equipped with ‘Pirate’, a search and track system made by a consortium of companies led by Galileo Avionica, a Finmeccanica company. The Pirate (Passive Infra-Red Airborne Tracking Equipment) combines the functions of the FLIR infra-red system (Forward Looking Infra-Red) and of the IRST system (Infra Red Search and Track), able to search, detect and track potential targets. The system operates in a passive mode, without emitting signals which might reveal the aircraft’s presence.

Also, the block 5 version includes the installation of a ILS (Instrumental Landing System) for all visibility conditions landings and an integrated training system in the aircraft cockpit (Enhanced Weapon Training Facilities), which allows the simulation of the presence of external loads on the aircraft both for air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.

The new version also leads to an improvement of the aircraft manoeuvrability, thanks to the possibility of using 100% of the capabilities of the Typhoon’s digital flight control system and to the extension of the flight envelope up to 9 g at subsonic speed and up to 7 g for the supersonic speed.

Some of the main characteristics brought by block 5 standard includes a more evolved integration of the new-generation air-to-air ASRAAM missile; the capability of the aircraft radar to operate also in the air-to-ground function and the possibility – though not contemplated for the aircraft in service with ItAF – of using air-to-ground systems like GBU-10, GBU-16 and Paweway II, thus allowing the Typhoons to play, within the same mission, both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles, and this is a unique characteristic of the Eurofighter within the world scenario for new-generation defence aircraft.

Other Finmeccanica companies involved in the block 5 aircraft production are Selex Communications and Selex Sensors & Airborne Systems”.

Washington, USA - Gears and super-technologies as security requirements

(WAPA) - In 2005 the consortium consisting of Lockheed Martin and AgustaWestland (a Finmeccanica company) awarded the tender for 23 VH-71 Kestrel special helicopters destined to US presidential fleet.

The “Marine One” looks like an Air Force One in miniature. The Pentagon and the White House have illustrated to the builders a series of requests: “Secret gadgets”, gears and state-of-the-art technologies to install aboard of helicopters, as video-surveillance, wide-band connections and several high-tech devices.

These requests have caused the slowdown of the programme and the increase of the realization costs. The total cost of the project is now more than USD 7 billion (as regards to previous USD 6.1 billion), and provoking at the same time some doubts on the real usefulness of these additional works.

According to Pentagon, the new gears are due to the requirements of security after the terrorist attempts of September 11th, 2001.

For the builders it is a race against time: the first five specimens, not equipped with the technologies requested by the Pentagon, must be delivered by October 2009. Only in 2015 these helicopters will be replaced with a new super-technological fleet. (Avionews)

Technical Card - VH-71 Kestrel
Marine One VH-71 Kestrel of Lockheed Martin-AgustaWestland consortium
Dimensions
Height:  6.65 m
Length:  22.81 m
Rotor diameter:  18.59 m

——————————————————————————–

Weights
Empty:  10,500 kg
Max T/O:  15,600 kg
Payload:  5,443 kg

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Performance
Max speed:  309 km/h
Range:  1389 km
Service ceiling:  4575 m

Avionews

(WAPA) - Selex Sistemi Integrati, subsidiary of Finmecanica, has signed a contract with Trinidad and Tobago Civil Aviation Authority (TTCAA) for the realization of a control centre for the air traffic management. The contract is valued at USD 18.5 million.

Within four months from the contract effectiveness is provided the supply of a temporary system.

The definitive centre will be equipped with 27 workstations for air traffic controllers and is destined to the airport of Trinidad, which will be integrated with data coming from the radars of Martinique, Guadalupe and Barbados, equipped with oceanic route control system.

The terms of the contract also provide for two radars and four workstations to be deployed in the control towers of the national airports, one simulator, radio systems for the communication between the area control centre and the airplanes, equipment for radar data presentation. Selex SI will also guarantee assistance for seven years.

Rome, Italy - On board NASA mission Phoenix
WAPA

“The launch of the mission Phoenix is scheduled for the first week of August from the American base of Cape Canaveral. In May 2008, the NASA probe will land near the southern pole of the planet. Phoenix has two main goals: 1) the assess and study of water presence, key aspect to unveil the history of the ancient climatic changes and 2) the search of traces that could lead to an environment with life.

Galileo Avionica, a Finmeccanica Company, is present on board Phoenix mission with 2 units of the Autonomous Star Tracker (A-STR), the outcome of over 20 years of experience of the company in the field of design and production of star sensors, both for space observation and for interplanetary probes.

Galileo Avionica Attitude Sensors are one of the most successful product line, for which the company is acknowledged as an European and global leader.

Up to today, Galileo Avionica has produced over 350 units of Stellar, Earth and Solar sensors both for institutional markets and also for ‘Open’ ones, with more than 50% of the revenues earned in the commercial sector.

The Autonomous Star Tracker of Galileo Avionica was developed to be used on board Rosetta mission, launched in January 2003 towards the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s. Later, the A-STR was adopted by the ESA (European Space Agency) also for the missions: Mars Express, Venus Express (in addition to the Herschel/Planck and to GAIA, which are still to be launched), the Cassini interplanetary probe of JPL and for many other NASA and commercial satellites.

The Star Tracker primary function is to measure, with very high position accuracy, the stellar maps present in its filed of view. Thanks to the stellar map stored in the A-STR software (over 3200 stars of magnitude up to 6.3 Mv), the star tracker delivers the attitude data (quaternions) of the probe during the entire mission life . If the probe was to lose its path, the A-STR would search automatically the new position and provide to the computer the information to place the probe back on its original path.

In the framework of the activities carried out for NASA, the autonomous star trackers A-STR have been already selected for many mission (Messenger, Stereo, Pluto Kuiper Belt, etc.) among which the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, also in orbit over Mars from August 2006, searching for water. The selection of the same stellar sensor for various missions reinforces Galileo Avionica worldwide leading position in this sector”. (Avionews)

United Press International
by Staff Writers

Cannes, France (UPI)

The European Space Agency has asked Cannes, France, satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space to quote a price on the construction of a Mars rover. The French-Italian satellite company announced it will convene a meeting of its major contractors next week to discuss the rover, which the ESA is planning to send to Mars in 2013, the BBC reported Thursday.

ESA delegations approved the general outline of the ExoMars rover concept in June and industrial workers are now facing a period of refinement and testing for the details of the concept. The vehicle, which is designed to travel over the surface of the red planet in search of past or present life, will be outfitted with a series of scientific instruments.

“We now have a deadline of 8 October for delivery of the full committing proposal from industry,” said Vincenzo Giorgio at Thales Alenia Space, the lead industrial partner on the ExoMars project.

“This is a challenge not only because there is August — normally a holiday all over Europe — but also because two months is a major challenge anyway to make a full blown proposal,” he said.