How is it possible to protect natural treasures and installations from terrorist divers? DSIT develops and sells special sonar systems for strategic facilities, ports and essential infrastructure.
DSIT's parent company, Acorn Energy, Inc., has announced a NIS 45 million deal to supply, install and build infrastructure for AquaShield sonar systems. The contract was signed with a government oil company in an undisclosed Asian country.
The sonar system is the flagship product of Givat Shmuel based DSIT, which employs 75 people. The product already defends sensitive sea-based facilities in many countries, including an oil terminal in Poland.
In size and appearance, the sonar system resembles a barrel. DSIT VP sales and marketing Dan Ben-Dov says that it is possible to quickly and easily install a sonar system near offshore oil or gas rigs. After being installed, the sonar system operates automatically, and transmits photographs of hostile parties that approach the facility. The photographs are transferred to the control and command center.
Ben-Dov added that two sonar systems are capable of fully protecting a facility and identifying suspicious movements underwater, at a distance of more than one kilometer. Ben-Dov says that for its investors, the sonar system is a dream come true for those with offshore interests, and a serious obstacle to commando fighters. "Multiple algorithms installed on the sonar system enable the extremely accurate identification of threats that approach the target, including the size of the threat, and in what capacity it is approaching the target; it can recognize a diver using a diving mask, which does not emit bubbles, or a diver that is approaching very quickly in an underwater vehicle.
"The warning is focused," Ben-Dov adds, "and enables the threat to be identified at such an accurate level that response forces being brought in to neutralize the threat know in real time the exact form of the party approaching, what its distance from the target is, and how quickly it is moving."
In order to develop the sonar system, it was installed for an extended period of time offshore from Ashkelon. DSIT technicians tried to test it with various scenarios, in an effort to check its ability to distinguish between a big fish, like a shark or dolphin, and a diver. "The sonar system knows how to study and learn from its surroundings, and to adapt itself to them. It can learn that fish are not a threat, but that every other inorganic detail must be analyzed," Ben-Dov added.
Dozens of variables
The Asian deal that DSIT recently completed is an example of the growing worldwide interest in the protection of deep sea infrastructure, Ben-Dov says.
Israel also acknowledges the possibility that terrorist organizations, headed by Hizbullah, as well as countries such as Iran and Syria, might try to harm offshore Mediterranean gas fields. Israel's preparation to protect its gas reserves includes the operation of unmanned aerial and marine vehicles, increasing the number of navy reconnaissance missions in the area of the rigs, and defending the perimeter in an effort to hermitically close off the area near the sites.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 11, 2011
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