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Election 2004

USF sonar guards GOP convention

The system will monitor the water around Manhattan during the national convention next month.

By ROBERT TRIGAUX
Published July 13, 2004

	[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
	John Kloske, director of operations at the University of South Florida's Center for Ocean Technology, holds a scanner for the sonar system going to New York.

ST. PETERSBURG - What does a plastic Christmas tree stand from Kmart have to do with the Republican National Convention?

Well, finding the first helped earn some Tampa Bay scientists a big ticket to the second.

Researchers at the University of South Florida's Center for Ocean Technology in St. Petersburg hid a round Christmas tree stand underwater not far off the campus seawall to test the ability of its cutting-edge sonar system to find it.

The tree stand is about the same size and shape as a limpet mine, a common type of underwater bomb that is magnetically attached to its target.

The sonar system did its job. Next month in New York City, the stakes will be higher.

To help deter terrorist plots, the U.S. Coast Guard recently chose the high-tech sonar system to monitor the ports, piers, seawalls and hulls of ships around Manhattan during the Republican National Convention in late August.

The convention job is a big step for USF, which has embraced an aggressive strategy to become a major university player in the world of antiterrorism security. Should its 3-D sonar deliver what it promises at the Republican convention, look for it at the 2005 Super Bowl in Jacksonville. The city lacks the hotel rooms to meet the Super Bowl's demands, so it has arranged for cruise ships at port to serve as hotels. Hence the added need for underwater security.

USF's sonar system creates high-resolution, three-dimensional color pictures and will allow the Coast Guard to scan below the waterline for any suspicious objects. That will be critical in the murky waters surrounding Manhattan during the Republican convention.

"We're not restricted by dark waters," said Scot T. Tripp, an engineer with the Coast Guard's Research & Development Center for Ocean Technology in Groton, Conn. The Coast Guard, along with the U.S. Secret Service, will coordinate the USF system as part of a major effort to protect the Republican gathering from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2.

And what about the Democratic National Convention? Scheduled to begin in just 13 days in Boston, it will take place too soon to benefit from the USF sonar system, Tripp said. But the Coast Guard will use a range of other, conventional sonar scans to protect the Boston harbor.

Last week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned that al-Qaida might attack America "in an effort to disrupt the democratic process." Though Ridge offered no specific information, both the Democratic and Republican conventions are considered prime targets.

About 50,000 convention attendees are expected to show up in New York, along with 500,000 or more protesters.

In the short term, the goal of USF's Center for Ocean Technology is to find more military and homeland security applications - and to tap their currently lucrative funding - for its emerging security projects.

In the long run, the center hopes to commercialize a variety of security-related systems.

"Ultimately, the Coast Guard is not interested in a single sensor, but rather a complete and mature scanning system," said John Kloske, director of operations at USF's Center for Ocean Technology. "That's the real challenge - delivering a tool that 19- or 20-year-old sailors can use."

Kloske will accompany the center's 3-D sonar system to the Republican National Convention and be on call should the Coast Guard require any assistance with the device.

The Center of Ocean Technology already is in early talks with ports in California and elsewhere about using its sonar system. The center sees the rapidly growing cruise ship industry as another market likely to embrace a product to improve the safety of its passengers.

The USF Center, along with St. Petersburg College, also recently formed a consortium to convince the federal government to establish a "national center for maritime and port security" in St. Petersburg. That effort is in the early stages, said Carol Steele, the center's business development manager.

The current 3-D sonar system emerged from an earlier USF project, the Robot. Designed during the Persian Gulf War, that system helped the U.S. Navy scan ocean bottoms for mines before landing soldiers on shore. Later development of the $100,000 sonar system was driven by federal interest in scanning the hulls of ships for places to hide guns or drugs.

That all changed after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. With the federal government's heightened interest in national security, USF's center upgraded its system to scan a wider range of underwater surfaces.

Development of USF's 3-D sonar system was funded by Office of Naval Research grants of nearly $1-million annually. The Coast Guard's Tripp said his organization recently added new funding to accelerate the 3-D sonar system into "an operational tool."

Overall, USF ranks among the highest federally funded universities in the nation for antiterrorism. Between USF's Center for Ocean Technology in St. Petersburg and its four-year-old Center for Biological Defense in Tampa, the university has received more than $8-million from the U.S. Department of Defense and other branches of the military in the past academic year for antiterrorism projects.

In addition, USF's Center for Ocean Technology in late 2002 opened one of the largest microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, research and development centers in the southeast at the Young-Rainey STAR Center in Largo. MEMS involves the miniatured manufacturing of devices for medical, aerospace and military purposes.

USF's Largo facility was funded by a $10.2-million grant from the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense Command.

In antiterrorism funding, USF is tapping a deep well but also facing fierce competition. The federal government has committed billions of federal dollars to finance homeland defense and new security projects. But the feds want efficient, high-quality results as quickly as possible.

The University of South Florida's underwater sonar system will be attached to the side of a small Coast Guard boat that can cruise at up to five knots along New York's piers and ships. Using acoustic sonar, the system will take color pictures of surfaces beneath the water and send the images to a central control center.

The 3-D images can then be turned and evaluated by computer from any angle. And the pictures are "geo-referenced" so that specific images can be pinpointed to precise locations.

The system is expected to be used repeatedly during the convention so that images of the same underwater locations can be compared over time for any differences.

At the least, the 3-D system will help monitor large underwater areas, and allow the Coast Guard to optimize its use of slower-moving divers in any search efforts.

- Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.

[Last modified July 12, 2004, 23:51:21]