In 2019 Sintela responded to a request for information from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for solutions for their Linear Ground Detection System (LGDS) program. After submitting our response based upon the use of ONYX™ we were down selected for a comprehensive infield evaluation against multiple vendors in September 2019.

ONYX™ outperformed the other systems being evaluated during the trial and consequently in March 2020 CBP awarded Sintela with the contract to supply, install and commission ONYX™ Sensing Units along the southwest U.S. Border.

The Sintela Solution

ONYX™ provides a platform which can be scaled to provide coverage over the entire length of the 1,900-mile-long southwest U.S. border between the United States and Mexico. Because ONYX™ is a quantitative Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) system, Sintela has been able to employ advanced machine learning techniques used to train the system to distinguish between different types of activity. This ensures that the system has industry leading detection performance sensitivity whilst minimising the Nuisance Alarm Rate. Alerts generated by ONYX™ are provided in real-time to Command-and-Control systems which use the information to cue other sensors and deploy the appropriate response.

The Value Delivered

Using our experience and expertise Sintela has been able to provide quickly and efficiently an operational solution which fulfils the demanding requirements of the LGDS programme. Since the first installation the system has proved its operational effectiveness and continues to provide real-time situational awareness along the border.