Sonardyne Sentinel Intruder Detection Sonar Completes US Navy Trials
31 January 2008
Sonardyne's innovative Intruder Detection System, Sentinel, successfully completed an intense series of trials over a four day period during October at the Naval Underwater Warfare Center, Newport Rhode Island.
Whilst full details of the test cannot be disclosed the performance of the Sentinel system exceeded expectations and met all the requirements of the test. During the four day period the Sentinel team were subjected to a series of threat scenarios. Sentinel is a third generation sonar system that has been designed specifically for the underwater security task, measuring only 30cm in diameter and 40cm high and weighing less than 65lb, the 360° sonar can operate as a stand-alone portable system or has been designed to allow multiple heads to be networked together to provide a wide area domain awareness.
Sentinel features an advanced automatic target detection, classification and tracking capability that removes the need for intensive manual operation and has demonstrated an ability to be deployed and operational within an hour of arriving on site. Its ease of set-up and configuration has been a key factor in the several successful demonstrations to-date.
Threat warnings can be be communicated in several different ways, on the systems command and control, distributed to a third party integrated system or distributed over the Ethernet to a host command and control anywhere in the world.
The Sentinel specification is the first cost effective solution that meets the growing underwater security requirement in terms of size, performance and cost - the recent demonstrations and tests are more than just a display of potential - the first operational deployments are scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2008.
