On July 13th, 2008 a large number of Taliban fighters launched a major assault on a small US military outpost in Wanat, Afghanistan, killing nine US soldiers and wounding 27.   As the war in Afghanistan pushes further, the US military will operate even more Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) that are located in remote territories and are surrounded by large numbers of hostile insurgents.  The technology proposed in this abstract is specifically tailored to protect US forces by providing the ability to detect, locate and surveille hostile forces that are approaching in the distance, giving US Forces ample time to assess and respond.

To address this problem STARA is integrating a suite of tower based surveillance systems that will use radar, infrared, acoustic and image technology to detect and surveile hostile forces. These components can be mounted to stationary resources for larger FOBS or to mobile trailers for expeditionary forces.

Both configurations are powered by renewable power resources (solar, wind) to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in operational environments where supply chains are thin.