Ensuring the security of oil rigs, ports and harbors isn't
easy. Boats of all sizes sail in and out, and while radar can see most of them,
it doesn't give details about who or what.
Intellicheck Mobilisa, a wireless technology company, thinks it
has an answer. It's a buoy, outfitted with an array of communications antennas,
a computer and various sensors. "In a way, this makes too much
sense," Steve Williams, CEO, told Discovery
News. "We wondered why nobody had tried this before."
To
keep costs down, the company turned to off-the-shelf systems where possible. For
example, the computer on board is similar to a high-end gaming machine. The
real advances are in the software, which can recognize anomalies, and the way
the buoys use communications frequencies and protocols. One of those is an
algorithm used to pick up wireless signals over water — unlike the ground,
which absorbs many frequencies, water reflects them, sometimes confusing receivers.
Power was another problem. A buoy that needs batteries
replaced or refueling isn't as cost effective as one that doesn't, so these devices are
powered by a set of solar panels (the number is adjusted to local presence or
absence of sunlight) and a wind turbine. Getting solar panels to work in a
marine environment, Williams said, isn't always easy — bird guano was a real
problem until they put Bird-B-gone on the top of the buoys.
The buoy can communicate on cellular, satellite, or Wi-Fi
networks, and can be equipped with cameras, infrared imagers and even sensors
for radiation. They idea is to deploy small groups of these buoys in big harbors or near
ports, such as Puget Sound or, as in a recent demonstration project for the
Navy in the Potomac.
A typical scenario might be the buoys, which are linked to
the shore via radio, would see a small boat approaching. That tells the
computer to turn the camera in that direction, and show someone monitoring the
image in real time. An infrared camera could show that there are several people
on the boat, and the person monitoring would tell the buoy to approach closer,
perhaps to check if there is any strange radiation from it or just to get a
closer look.
That's a pretty straightforward monitoring system, but
Williams said there's more to it. Because the buoys can communicate via
802.11.b — Wi-Fi — they can coordinate with each other and send data. So such
buoys can also re-create a small Internet at sea. The U.S. Navy has been
interested in using it as a communications system between ships, because by
deploying several buoys, with one as a master control, it's possible for the
ships to send data at the same speeds one might expect from a typical W-Fi-
network.
That's a big upgrade from the typical systems, which rely on
satellite links — reliable as they are the amount of data that can be sent is
very limited.
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The buoys might also do environmental monitoring. Williams
said one partner was the University of Washington, which is interested in using
them to monitor the environment in the Sound. Because they can send a lot of
data, the number of sensors can be greater and the information can be retrieved
in real time.
Williams said the first big customers are likely to be oil
companies and the local governments that monitor them. The reason is that oil
rigs need to protect themselves frm intruders and be able to see if wellheads,
for example, are leaking. Governments in places such as Nigeria and Trinidad
want to know that the oil companies are complying with local environmental
regulations.
Credit: Intellicheck Mobilisa
