Defence and Security
Challenges
A national electrical infrastructure system is inherently vulnerable because transmission lines may span hundreds of miles, and many key facilities are remote and unguarded.
Simple example of high voltage transformers used to send electricity over great distances to thousands of substations, where smaller transformers reduce the voltage for domestic and commercial use could be easy damaged or take out by acts vandalism or premeditated terrorist acts causing significant loss of electrical power to large regions.
An internal FERC memo obtained by the press in March 2012 states that “destroying nine interconnector substations and a transformer manufacturer and the entire United States grid would be down for 18 months, possibly longer”.
The consequences of a sustained power outage would result in the collapse of the water infrastructure, delivery of purified water, fuels and commodities to consumers and the total shutdown of the economy.
Physical protection of facilities and sites does not provide total protection, using continuous 24/7 guards at each location would not be cost effective dues to the number of dispersed locations. CCTV provides some surveillance capability but due to the number of sites it will require very large numbers of operators to continuously monitor all CCTV feeds.
Solution
The WASP provides persistent autonomous real-time surveillance and protection of remote high value assets and sites anywhere in the world.
WASP autonomous solutions sets up an electronic virtual high security perimeter around a facility or site that can detect approaching land, air and overwater threats.
WASP utilises a range of perimeter radars, seismic and acoustics sensors and high performance Electro-Optic and Infra-Red (EO/IR) camera systems to detect any type of threat. The SYMCON perimeter radars provide a detection range from 1km to 15km for an intruder in all weather conditions, day or night to provide persistent 360 degrees situation awareness around a site.
On detection of a threat, WASP autonomous automatically sends out alerts, initiates protection measures and deploys effectors to prevent threat entry into a secure zone. It also transmits via available networks or satcom real-time situation awareness information to a secure WASPCloud which can be accessed by authorised fixed control rooms and mobile devices to provide immediate threat and video information to supporting assets.
WASP autonomous can be deployed as a fixed installations or rapidly deployed as WASP mobile nodes. WASP autonomous Rapid Deployment Kits (RDK) are man-portable systems that can be mounted on a tripod, vehicle, boat or ship.
Multiple WASP RDKs can be set up in a location, all of which automatically connect using a secure MESH network to a local or remote operator command and control node to provide surveillance and intelligence gathering capability within minutes.
Additional RDKs can be added or moved to new locations as the situation on the ground changes without disrupting operations. Once an RDK has been deploy it operators autonomously 24/7 to provide real-time detection and video information to the command and control node.
