DDS-J Underwater Pipeline Protection for Maritime Security

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The Westminster DDS-J Diver Detection Sonar is designed specifically to counter the threat of sabotage and terrorism to underwater oil pipelines.

The Westminster DDS-J node is positioned centrally on top of the pipeline, and actively scans to a distance of 1km per DDS-J node, with 25m coverage on either side of the pipeline, and 50m vertically. The DDS-J has no limits to system size, and any length of pipeline can be fully protected with this system.

The Westminster DDS-J provides alarm activation when a diver enters the scanned detection sector, alerting the operator of a potential threat. The system is also equipped with passive hydrophone receivers that listen for attack that may be made on the pipeline (drilling for example). This feature provides a secondary back up and confirmation to the diver detection sonar, and makes the DDS-J the ultimate in underwater pipeline protection.

The system has been designed to perform the following tasks:

• Detection of divers, swimmers and swimmer delivery vehicles (SDV) in automatic and manual modes;
• Automatic target tracking;
• Determination of target data like bearing, range, course, depth, speed, aspect angle, length and level;
• Display of processed detection and classification echoes together or alter­native to acoustic "raw" data;
• Display of tactical information on the surveillance display with graphical picture of the protected area, sector coverage of the sonar head, target markers, track symbols, track history;
• Initiating an electronic countermeasure (low frequency high power sources);
• Passive hydrophone pipeline monitoring to confirm attack and drilling of the pipeline.

The Westminster DDS-J will detect divers (in closed VA breathing apparatus) to a distance of 1km (500m in each opposite direction from the DDS-J Node). The DDS-J node data is coupled to the surveillance centre by optical fibre.

The Diver Detection Sonar performs a horizontal straight line (north to south) and provides 25m detection to either side of the pipeline it is protecting.

Operation

The DDS-J system is works fully automatically, after detection of a target based on the continuous measurement of the ambient noise/reverberation and automatic threshold setting, the detection, tracking, classifi­cation, and depth functions are initialised without operator inputs.

These are:

• Static signal suppression;
• Separation of moving/non moving targets;
• Tracking in range and bearing in automatic and prediction mode together with a presentation of the expectation area;
• Calculation of course & speed;
• Comparison with programmable detection and classification parameters;
• Marking of targets, audio/video alarms;
• Presentation of new targets.

Besides these fully automatic functions the system can be operated interactively/ manually by the operator, in the manual mode all detected echoes are shown as a colour-coded presentation of the echo levels.

The operator can select or input by menu technique parameters of the displays like:-

• Actual ping period;
• Data of the ping-to-ping integration function;
• Data of the difference detector/new target detector based on the difference between actual ping period and the ping integration memory;
• Data of the Underwater Node status;
• Magnifiers (zoom) for analysis.

Depth information and parameters like:-

• Transmission mode CW, FM, pulse length;
• Criteria for automatic detection and classification;
• Sector scan/full picture scan.

Operator inputs are via:-

• Pull down menus;
• Trackball.

The system is mainly controlled by graphical control with the trackball.

Operator's Display

The operator’s console is custom built to suit the end users requirements. The picture above shows a typical control & command console with 2 x 42 inch plasma monitors on the wall and local spot monitors for the required number of operators (two in the picture above).

The minimum requirement is to equip the console with two 21” high resolution (1024 x 1280 pixels) colour raster scan surveillance monitor for the presentation of the Tactical surveillance display (tactical display) And/or the Sonar detection and analysis display (sonar display).

The Underwater Node of the DDS-J covers a vertical sector to a depth of around 50m which acquires the water volume to be protected in three dimensions.

By having the flexibility to adjust the size of the vertical sector according to the actual water depth the DDS can be always operated in an optimised form.

Typical Display Screen

Diver as ATT-target T1

Special Characteristics of DDS-J

• High horizontal- and vertical resolution;
• Low sensitivity against surface and bottom reverberation;
• Narrow observation sector;
• Long detection ranges;
• Fully automatic operation;
• Passive hydrophone attack confirmation.

Alarm Levels

For all echoes which exceed the detection threshold a sonar internal tracking (max. 50 channels) and analysis will sort out the echoes with the highest probability to be from a real target such as diver, swimmer or delivery vehicle based on the criteria.

Diver and Swimmer (Parameter set 1)

• Moving/Non Moving;
• Speed;
• Course;
• Depth;
• Approaching/Departing;
• Initial detection range

Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (Parameter set 2)

• Moving/Non Moving;
• Speed;
• Course;
• Depth;
• Approaching/Departing;
• Initial detection range.

For more detailed information on this product, including specifications, please consult the Westminster Underwater Pipeline Protection PDF linked below.

To hear the audio presentation on this product, please click here.

Westminster International's Maritime Security Solutions homepage.

To view the full specification of this product as a PDF please click Underwater Pipeline Protection DDS-J .

To view our related Pulsar-3D Advanced Diver Detection product as a PDF please click Pulsar 3D.

To view our related Diver Detection Sonar product as a PDF please click Diver Detection Sonar.

To view our related Underwater Sonar product as a PDF please click Rapid Response Underwater Detection Sonar.

To view our related Underwater Communication Diver Disruption product as a PDF please click Underwater Communication & Diver Disruption

To view our related Underwater Net product as a PDF please click Underwater Security Net.

To view our related Marine Barrier product as a PDF please click Marine Barrier.

To view our related Autonomous Underwater Surveillance Vessel product as a PDF please click here.

To view our related Marine CCTV Camera Kit product as a PDF please click Marine CCTV Kit.

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