New Underwater Inspection System "Sees" With Sound
August 06, 2008
A new underwater inspection system can see beneath the sea where human eyes
can't. NY1’s Technology reporter Adam Balkin filed the following report.
A new underwater inspection system can see beneath the sea where human eyes
can't.
The devise, called an EchoScope, bounces sound waves off of objects to produce
pretty, colorful three-dimensional images of objects under the surface of the
water.
“It's completely unique the only one in the world, and what you're able to do
is see in three-dimensional, underwater in zero-visibility water,” said Angus
Lugsdin of CodaOctopus as he patrolled Throgs Neck in the Bronx.
“It's using sound to see, so we've effectively got an acoustic video stream,”
said Lugsdin. “So think of it like a normal video stream, but instead of using
a camera we're using sonar. So what that enables us to do -- sound waves go
into the water and they reflect back off the objects and that paints a picture
on our screen.”
The sonar was originally developed to help oil companies inspect offshore rigs
for damage, but is being further developed through a Coast Guard contract for
Homeland Security. Developers intend to create a visual catalogue of all our
ports and shores.
“You can make a scan on day one and use that as our baseline, our reference,”
said Lugsdin, “and if you come back and scan again, and we know what targets
we've seen and we've marked them, we can see if anything's changed.”
“So, conventionally where you'd have to put a team of divers down to cover hand
over hand and it takes them hours or days to cover a significant area, we can
cover that same area in minutes,” continued Lugsdin.
Developers say it is not meant to replace human divers, but rather help them be
deployed more efficiently.
“So, if NYPD got a call of a suspicious activity, spotted someone planting someone
at the base of a bridge, they could go there with their boat with this system
mounted on the side quickly scan around the bridge and determine if there was
an object there,” said Lugsdin. “At that point, they could send the divers in
for a closer look, but now they've saved a huge amount of time and made it a
lot safer.”
Developers say right now the sonar is being looked at by several law
enforcement departments and the Coast Guard is evaluating some systems off the
coasts of
- Adam Balkin