Wireless security buoys have WOW factor
The wireless security buoys provide a high capacity communications network grid to provide real-time monitoring for marine environments.
In its ongoing quest to find and stop weapons of mass destruction, the US Department of Defense is expanding the role of elite commando units.
Specifically, the Pentagon is now proposing to spend nearly $580m through the year 2016 on commando ‘counter-terrorism technologies.’
Kenneth Myers, director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, noted on 23 February that improving commando capabilities is part of a US approach to address WMD threats in as many lines of defense as possible. ‘Detection and interdiction in large part is going to be a Special Operations Command mission’, he said.
‘As the Defense Department steps up its anti-WMD initiative, it’s important to note that technology already exists to locate weapons of mass destruction if terrorists are bringing them in via America’s ports’, said Dr. Nelson Ludlow, CEO of Intellicheck Mobilisa, a Port Townsend, Washington based developer of identity and wireless security systems.
Intellicheck’s Littoral Sensor Grid (LSG) project is a buoy system that collects environmental and security data and uses the company’s Wireless Over Water (WOW) technology to transmit the data to the shore Network Operations Center (NOC) for dissemination.
The wireless security buoys provide a high capacity communications network grid to provide real-time monitoring for marine environments. The buoys can include sensors for both homeland security and environmental purposes. They are capable of detecting materials above, on or below the surface of the water, and can measure water temperature, pH balance and turbidity. If any of the various indicators are outside expectation parameters, it could suggest the presence of harmful materials in the water such as debris from an explosion or chemicals used for a bomb.
In 2009, Intellicheck was awarded a $4.5m U.S. Navy contract to expand an existing security buoy project in Puget Sound, and a year later, was awarded an additional $500,000 from the Navy. ‘The Wireless Security Buoys project has been recognized as a vital source for port security, said Dr. Ludlow. ‘And it could serve to lead its commando units in the direction of the WMDs themselves, if they are there.’
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