Underwater Port Security System

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 UIS
2 IAS
3 External links

See UIS and IAS for other meanings of these initials.

For other diver-detector sonars, see Category:Diver-detector sonars.

UPSS stands for Underwater Port Security System, developed for the United States Coast Guard and the MSST (= Maritime Safety and Security Teams) as an anti-frogman technique. It includes the UIS (Underwater Inspection System) and the IAS (Integrated Anti-Swimmer System). Recent developments in terrorism have highlighted the need for underwater anti-frogman security. The UPSS is said to be compact enough fit in a large suitcase. It is made in the USA.

The Coast Guard unveiled the system on 2 or 9 February 2005 at the Coast Guard Integrated Support Command in San Pedro, California, USA.

[edit] UIS

Underwater Inspection System or UIS is a system manufactured by CodaOctopus and consists of the unique Echoscope Real Time 3D Sonar that is used to scan the underwater environment in zero visibility waters. The UIS system can be mounted on a small boat to scan harbor walls, piers, bridges for an underwater threat and can be used to complement long range diver detection systems by classifying the threat in 3D in real time. The same system can be mounted on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to create 3D ship hull scans detecting small mine size objects.

[edit] IAS

Integrated Anti-Swimmer System is a US Coastguard underwater anti-diver ultrasound weapons system. IAS includes:-

SM2000 (Underwater Surveillance System), a search sonar made by Kongsberg Mesotech.
An underwater warning loudspeaker.
An underwater shockwave emitter that can force divers to surface, or stun or kill them. The US Coastguard calls it an "nonlethal interdiction acoustic impulse".

It can track underwater objects, similarly to an air traffic control radar. It is semi-intelligent (perhaps by means of artificial neural network technology) and can distinguish humans from marine animals and humans, partly because of their different shapes and typical movements underwater: compare the Cerberus underwater diver-detector. This is not impeded by darkness or fog or low underwater visibility, and is a great improvement on scanning the water surface by eye from above. Various test attempts by MSST divers to trick the system did not work.

In most cases the detected diver would be warned by the underwater loudspeaker; after that, the shockwave emitter would be fired once as a warning, before it is fired to stun or kill.