SAN ANTONIO -- The annual Texas Homeland Security conference is taking place at the San Antonio Convention Center until Wednesday.

Along with workshops for first responders, vendors are also in town showing off the latest is security technology. Local residents could be interested in some updated emergency mobile transport vehicles.

A Mobile Surveillance Platform is one of the newest tools in the Homeland Security arsenal, Terrahawk salesman Marty James said. James said Terrahawk built it with the border patrol in mind, but it has a wide range capability.

"It provides law enforcement and emergency responders the ability to quickly move in on the situation and assess control of it in less than two minutes," he said.

The enclosed capsule raises 25 feet above an event. The unit is equipped with thermal and digital cameras.

"The people you see in thermal, you can zoom in with the digital, and that is about 200 yards away," James said.

Ed Sartin, who said he was in the bus business, designed and built a new bus after watching the deadly disaster of Hurricane Katrina unfold on TV.

"Why can't we find some way of converting a bus into a vehicle that we can transport a lot of patients," asked Sartin, president of Sartin Services.

Sartin said he found a way. His model has 15 beds.

"Each stretcher slides out so you can actually bring the stretcher to the patient and bring the patient in and set him into a place and slide back into the compartment," Sartin said.

The bus has already been used to transport injured children to a hospital after a school bus accident in North Carolina. Sartin said it carries all the medical supplies necessary for disaster relief, along with medical personnel.