India goes hi-tech with deep-sea surveillance

In an effort to protect India's vast coastline and ports from various threats, seabed arrays and unmanned underwater vehicles will be used for ocean surveillance.

The project, started in collaboration with the National Physical Oceanography Laboratory, Kochi, and Naval Science and Technology Laboratory, Visakhapatnam, is expected to be completed in five years, A Sivathanu Pillai, chief controller of research and development, Defence Research and Development Organisation, said on Wednesday.

"India has a 7500-km coastline. With increasing focus on littoral warfare, the research in seabed arrays for collecting acoustic data on a continuous basis and transmission of the data through buried electro-optical cables to a shore-based processing station for classification assumes strategic importance," he said in his inaugural address at the International Symposium on Ocean Electronics.

The present low data communication rates between moving platforms needs to give way for high throughput using acoustic modems, he said.

The UUVs are increasingly deployed for mapping of underwater terrains, mine laying and mine sweeping and for recovery operations beneath the sea.

"We have launched a major programme which is being developed by NSTL at Visakhapatnam," he said.