Oceanalpha, a developer of Unmanned Surface Vessels (USV), has participated in an the world’s first unmanned anti-smuggling exercise as part of the 4th “New Asia-Europe Safety Corridor International Law Enforcement Cooperation Forum”, hosted by the Ministry of Public Security of China.
As part of the exercise, Oceanalpha’s unmanned boats demonstrated how they can assist the police with the tracking and detainment of smugglers fleeing in a speedboat. Oceanalpha’s M75 security unmanned boat chased after the smugglers, as commanded, in order to capture the smugglers’ faces and provide location information to the command center via airborne equipment.
At the same time, the M75 cooperated with the Oceanalpha L30 security unmanned boat to surround the smuggler’s speedboat and instruct them to surrender. One of the smugglers tried to flee with a motorboat, and the Oceanalpha unmanned boat immediately pursued it and guided the water police to intercept.
During the process, the Oceanalpha M75 security unmanned boat popped a life raft to rescue the “smuggler” who had accidentally fallen into the water. The M80 marine investigation boat sailed into the incident site and used sonar to locate the “smuggling diamonds” that were thrown into the sea to help the diver retrieve the evidence of the crime.
The exercise demonstrated the capabilities of Oceanalpha’s security unmanned boat and the potential role that unmanned and autonomous vessels can have in assisting the police and security enforcement officers to monitor and regulate waters.
Oceanalpha’s L30 and M75 security guard unmanned boats can reach maximum speeds of 46 knots and 30 knots respectively, and feature advanced functions such as autonomous navigation, perceptual obstacle avoidance, real-time monitoring, tracking and reconnaissance, image recognition, and real-time information collection. The team at Oceanalpha believes that USVs can effectively replace police manpower on water security patrol missions.
According to Oceanalpha, these security unmanned boats can respond to the commands issued by the command system in real time, and dispatch within 2 minutes, replacing the police personnel to get into crime scenes and complete high-risk and repetitive tasks autonomously. The data collected by the on-site detection can also be uploaded in real time through the long-distance communication equipment carried by the unmanned boat, which can form a historical record and be used at any time, greatly improving work efficiency and accuracy.
Deployed with different equipment, Oceanalpha unmanned boats can be used in multiple application scenarios, such as being equipped with life rafts and lifebuoys for search and rescue; equipped with water cannons for fire detection and fire control; equipped with detection instruments to detect suspicious underwater objects and track frogmen; equipped with non-lethal weapons such as pepper mustard water and infrasound disperser for law enforcement.
In December 2017, Oceanalpha’s unmanned boats successfully executed the water security mission of the Fortune Forum, which was recognized by the industry. Since then, the unmanned boats have become routine equipment for the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau to carry out water policing tasks. In June 2018, Oceanalpha won the bid for the Ministry of Public Security project to provide security police unmanned boats for the police system, helping the police department to improve the accuracy and efficiency of crime combating.
