The United States Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP) has signed an agreement with Anduril, the start of the “virtual border wall” launched by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. The Washington Post reports that the agency awarded Anduril a five-year contract to deploy portable watchtowers designed to detect moving vehicles and human figures across the United States border. In the agreement, CBP will buy 140 towers in 2021 and 2022, complementing 60 towers that were already part of a pilot program. A company executive told the Send that the deal was worth “several hundred million dollars.”
Anduril has been working with CBP since 2018, and has obtained additional contracts with groups such as the U.S. Marine Corps and the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy. Its sentinel towers use a variety of sensors, including LIDAR, to capture data. An AI system called Lattice analyzes it to distinguish between different types of moving objects. The goal is to detect humans crossing the United States border while minimizing the number of false animal alarms. Anduril has also produced another technology such as a ram drone that is not part of the CBP contract.
Supporters of “virtual border wall” technology generally describe it as an alternative to an expensive and intrusive border wall like the one Trump built in his 2016 presidential campaign, although this technology will be implemented alongside the construction of the physical wall. A previous effort called SBINet failed in 2011, but advances in computer vision have led companies like Anduril to revisit the concept.
