Sonardyne’s Sentinel sonar deployed for IMCMEX

Sonardyne’s Sentinel Intruder Detection Sonar (IDS) has been successfully deployed during the International Mine Counter-Measures Exercise (IMCMEX) in Bahrain, the company said on 10 March.

IMCMEX was a three-week exercise that saw 6,500 personnel and 38 warships from 44 navies take part.

During the exercise, the US Navy operated the Sentinel IDS in a variety of scenarios to demonstrate its capabilities in protecting high-value marine assets. Divers from other participating navies were tasked with evading detection of the IDS during simulated assaults, and the system proved successful in alerting operators to each approaching threat.

The Sentinel IDS was developed to detect small underwater targets such as divers, providing local underwater situational awareness. It is currently deployed in military ports, harbours, vessels and shore side critical national infrastructure, commercial ports and vessels. The system can detect, track and classify targets such as underwater vehicles, divers and surface swimmers approaching a protected asset up to 1km away from all directions.

The 2015 IMCMEX included maritime security operations such as escorting and defending commercial shipping, and maritime infrastructure protection for oil rigs and harbours.

Nick Swift, business manager for maritime security, Sonardyne, said: ‘With a quarter of the world’s navies in attendance, this was the perfect environment to demonstrate Sentinel’s capabilities in protecting high value offshore facilities, ports and critical waterside infrastructure.’