Barco reaches breakthrough in maritime surveillance & security market with multi-million euro contract from EADS

Barco's advanced visualization technology will bring a new level of security to Portuguese shores and coastal waters

Visualization specialist Barco has been awarded a multi-million euro contract by EADS, Munich, Germany to deliver software and services for a new, large-scale Vessel Traffic Control System (VTCS) in Portugal. The new system will allow the country to reliably monitor its maritime traffic, protect the outer borders of its mainland, and improve the maritime safety and environmental protection of its coastal waters. Barco's deliveries are part of a large-scale project carried out by an international consortium led by EADS. First deliveries are scheduled for mid-2006.


"Barco is very pleased to be subcontracted by EADS to support this new, state-of-the-art system that will take Portugal to the head of the field in maritime traffic surveillance,� comments Luc Vandenbroucke, President of BarcoView, a division of Barco.

Under the contract, Barco will provide a set of flexible components of its scalable OPScenter solution. Among these components are various sensor-processing functions, such as radar video trackers, multi sensor trackers, and interfaces to the Automatic Identification System and the radio direction finder. In addition, Barco will deliver a traffic simulator for testing and training, a conflict detection engine to also observe the traffic separation scheme and detect route deviations, as well as components for system monitoring, control and failover, recording and replay of radar video, system tracks, traffic conflicts, and VHF (Very High Frequency) communications. The most prominent parts of the setup are the traffic display systems, based on Barco's latest ODS Toolbox Version 5.2. Interfaces to external databases and a VHF system allow the integration of the existing infrastructure.