Keeping the coast clear
There is both underwater and over water surveillance. In the air, radar technology uses radio waves and microwaves to detect objects. Radar stations constantly emit these waves into the air. When an object like a ship or aeroplane hits the path of this wave it gets reflected back. The radar then picks up the reflected waves and determines the class of object, its speed and material constitution. For example, an oil tanker will have a different signature than a fishing trawler even if they are travelling at the same speed. Often friendly ships also emit identification signals unique to them.
Under the water microwaves and radio waves cannot be used because they get absorbed by the water medium. Sound waves are used underwater. A sonar station emits sound waves and waits for reflections to return so that it can identify all objects in the range of the sound signals it emits. Ship engines also emit distinctive sound signatures that are picked up by the sonar station and which help in identifying them.
Challenges
The echoes received using the radar and sonar get picked up in a tracker. They show up as small blips on the screen. Small rubber dingies of the kind used by the terrorists show up as a blur. These are often ignored or deliberately not picked up because there are many such small crafts in the ocean. Often these have to be intercepted by the Coast Guard in their rounds, because the radar and sonar technology cannot detect them effectively.
Improving detection capability
A solution to this is to have a dense network of radar and sonar stations in busy coastal areas like Mumbai harbour. Within this network there has to be constant exchange of information. Just like in the mobile network as you move from one base station to another, your service provider picks you up and identifies you as being the same customer, within this network seamless identification of objects from one radar and sonar station to another needs to occur. It is not possible to track each radar and sonar station manually. So just like software programs allow seamless transfer between mobile towers in a cellphone network, software programs need to control the radar and sonar stations.
Also algorithms to detect unusual behaviour need to used. In the case of the Mumbai terrorists, they are believed to have transferred to the smaller dinghy from a fishing trawler. A radar and sonar network would have picked this as unusual behaviour and would have alerted the coast guard.
Today we have put Chandrayaan on the moon. Our scientists are capable of producing high technology to counter terrorism too. Let us utilize their skills to counter terrorism. We are an emerging technology superpower, lets learn to use technology in every sphere of life, from securing a good standard of living to protecting ourselves against enemies.
Read: Fighting Terror Series
The post is very interesting ... blog is very different from what I have read... People just comment on the situation but u are giving the solution!!!
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be having a fairly good knowledge of the subject. I cannot but agree with you that we need to secure our coastline with the same seriousness that our land borders have been/are being secured. With such a huge coastline, that can only be done by using latest technology. Perhaps we need to learn what the US did after 9/11.
ReplyDeleteindia supplies "security" technology for the US, but none for its own !
ReplyDeleteThis is a very challenging,
ReplyDeleteNow almost everyone is talking about the issue. Can the Navy/Coast Guard be held responsible? Not really.
I once went on a tour of the Rann, off the wild ass sanctuary and then into Dwarka. There you'd see thousands, yes thousands of fishing trawlers. Surveillance and checks that way are not possible. All vehicles that operate in the vicinity of the porous coastline should be given proper ID cards and should be made to undergo registration first.
Then proper passive/or active long range "RFID type" tags should be embedded in all the registered vehicles, now there could be surveillance by a swarm of very simple bots requiring very less power. They are easy to make and not expensive. These patrolling bots could be like Rotundus. And probably could use dispersive algorithms like these (as an example look at the fourth paper). There is no reason our neighbor would object to that as they (the bots) could be constrained to stay within a certain range.
Surveillance can be carried out much better by a swarm of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles having decent image processing capabilities and Tag detection capability. Maybe in UAVs swarms won't be needed but they might need to be networked for sure so that there are no blind spots plus there is cushion to replace "shifts".
Now both such swarms and UAVs need some good research, basic systems resembling these if given proper cash and dedication can be made by undergraduate students, nothing that the scientists in the country can't do as the problem at hand would be more specific.
But maybe this possible solution is too speculative.
But this is what came to my mind at first.
Regards
-Shubhendu
The idea of "RFID type" tags was similar to what you suggested in terms on "friendly" signals.
ReplyDeleteIn democratic societies surveillance is a complex issue. While there is no doubt that technology is emerging that can identify "abnormal" behavior and alert the appropriate authorities, there is also the risk of misuse. Take the proliferation of speed cameras in the UK as an example: it would be feasible for the police to track the movement of a car, perhaps your car, throughout its journey. Is this something we want?
ReplyDeleteYou might argue that if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, but is that justification for your government to spy on you?
I'm not sure. It's a very complex issue and, as technology, particularly machine vision technology, grows ever more capable of identifying people and activities, it's something all societies should try to debate.
Safe but watched or unsafe but not spied upon?
@Subhendu You have actually expanded my ideas very well. I totally agree many enhancements can be done. In fact in the air space Tagging is a must for every air borne object. The ideas you have suggested will have to be implemented for the sea borne ships too.
ReplyDelete@Grey very pertinent question: safe but watched or unsafe but not spied upon? Tough question but if we can use watched for monetary gains then why not for protection too?