McQ Inc. — Department of Commerce SBIR Phase II: Buoy vandalism occurs all over the world for many different reasons, and costs NOAA and ot

Description

Buoy vandalism occurs all over the world for many different reasons, and costs NOAA and other buoy operators an estimated $1 million annually to replace and repair them. To deter vandals and report any vandal attempts to NOAA, McQ has developed the Buoy Guard System (BGS). BGS is a small, extremely low power sensor system that will detect the presence of intruders first approaching and then boarding the buoy. The primary intruder detection mode will be acoustic augmented by accelerometer. Once detected, the system will automatically capture images of the intruders and send them back via satellite communications (satcom) to buoy operators for action. Image processing will determine the optimal images to send back over satcom and optical character recognition (OCR) processing will send back the text read from the stern or sides of the intruding vessel. The detections and imagery will also be stored securely in BGS on the buoy for later retrieval. Additionally the system will have non-lethal deterrents (specifically strobe lights, an audio alarm, supplemented with sonic nausea) to ward off both ill intentioned as well as curious intruders. The system is completely self-contained and can easily be installed on a wide variety of buoy designs.