A buoy-based, multi-sensor maritime/port security platform designed to collect, process, store maritime identifiers and build a secure, cloud-based maritime database.
SeaPicket is energy-harvesting, autonomous, long-dwell (up to six years), persistent surveillance platform integrating acoustic, radar/EW, video and AIS sensors. The resulting maritime database will then employ artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics to port security organizations and field commanders, providing unsurpassed domain awareness around ships transiting in and out of US seaports.BACKGROUND:
The world's economy moves through water. More than 8 billion tons of seaborne trade travels the globe on nearly 50,000 registered merchant vessels. Over ¼ of the world's shipping traffic passes through ports of the United States.
Traditional methods of port security have become inadequate when measured against the seemingly impossible nature of the task. Consider the magnitude of the problem:
- Over 350 US Ports
- Over 95,000 miles of open shoreline
- Nearly 10,000 commercial vessels/year enter US Ports
- Nearly 20,000,000 containers/year enter US Ports
- Over 300,000 foreign seaman/year enter US Ports
The ever-increasing volume of globalized trade poses a serious security risk to the United States in the post-9/11 era. The threat of potentially catastrophic acts of terrorism and state-sponsored sabotage continues to grow, and the global transportation industry remains vulnerable to nuclear terrorism, economic terrorism and other asymmetric water-borne threats.
”A nuclear attack on the US “is far more likely to arrive in a cargo container than on the tip of a missile.”
- Graham Allison, Harvard's Kennedy School of Gov't
”A nuclear attack on the US “is far more likely to arrive in a cargo container than on the tip of a missile.”
- Graham Allison, Harvard's Kennedy School of Gov't
In order to mitigate and minimize new and existing terrorist and security threats, new solutions must be developed to deter and detect these sea-borne threats before they reach the ports, harbors and docks of the United States. ThayerMahan and its technology partners are working to address these port security concerns by leveraging emerging technologies -- integrated into an open and flexible architecture -- that will be made available to the US Coast Guard and other maritime law enforcement agencies. SeaPicket and TransparenSea are the first of such systems currently in development.
