12:52 PM CST on Tuesday, December 27, 2005

By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA-TV

US Global Nanospace

Intruders are targeted with high-intensity sounds in this artist's drawing.

Human eyes and ears and steel fences line the U.S.-Mexico border at its most populated spots.

But the remote border would be costly to fence and vulnerable to vandalism.

An Arlington company says it could achieve the same results without a fence. It proposes a series of unmanned, highly sensitive cameras backed up by hardware and sounds.

U.S. Global Nanospace designed its system, called Mapsands, for high-value targets in the Middle East, but says Mapsands could be used on the border.

The system uses high resolution cameras with a range of more than half a mile. If an intruder is spotted by the daytime/nighttime camera he's warned over a long range speaker not to come closer.

If he continues, he's barraged with a high-intensity sounds - a key component of the technology. If he doesn't stop then, the deterrence escalates.

U.S. Global Nanospace has mobile versions of the system that can be deployed on a temporary basis, then parked and abandoned.

It is the lack of human intervention, the company says, that makes Mapsands effective.

Because intruders soon learn, in this case, that the outcome of crossing the border illegally will be very unpleasant and can't be avoided.