Spain Bolsters Border Security with High-Tech Cameras to Combat Trafficking

Tecnobit, a subsidiary of the Oesia group, which participates in aerial, naval and land systems such as the Eurofighter, the Dragon 8x8, or the future FCAS, has been developing high-performance surveillance, detection and tracking cameras and electro-optical systems since 1985, used for the surveillance of the Spanish coasts in the Strait of Gibraltar and the border with Morocco, heavily used by migrant and drug trafficking networks.

Tecnobit’s cameras are perfectly suited for surveillance in all weather conditions, day and night, from land (anti-missile platform), sea (warships) or air (planes or helicopters), reports El Español. The ARGOS cameras, with an accuracy of "10 microradians, the limit of what technology allows us with four axes", are "capable of tracking targets with amazing clarity at great distances," explains Leticia Martín, product development engineer at Technobit.

"This is our most sophisticated optronic system, as it includes visible spectrum cameras, thermal cameras, laser integration and an automatic target detection and tracking system," says Patrick Body, product manager for optronic systems at Tecnobit. Currently, ARGOS is capable of providing HD resolution with a range of over 20 kilometers in optimal conditions. It is already installed on 29 ships of the Spanish Navy dedicated to surveillance and security operations on and off the territory.

The ORISON thermal cameras are MWIR (medium-wave infrared) cameras for medium and long-range observation, capable of operating in extreme thermal conditions. Its particularity is that it is capable of performing continuous infrared zoom up to 40 kilometers in aircraft, 20 kilometers on ships and about 27 kilometers on land. "With this small camera, I distinguished cars from trucks in Morocco from Tarifa," confides a specialist.