A webbed or motorized diver, a submerged drone having “a precise trajectory or a detectable speed”. These are the kind of “threats” that the new tool born from a collaboration between the Thales group and a start-up in the Alpes-Maritimes, MyDataModels, will detect in marine waters by 2024.
“The demonstrators are equipped with sonar to locate an object that could approach a sensitive area, such as industrial zones, ports, a place of reception for the general public, analyzes Marc Delorme, line director of underwater products at Thales . We had enough to protect ourselves by air, on land, we had to equip ourselves to ensure permanent and reliable protection of the seafront and the populations. Especially in these opaque environments where it is not possible to have neither cameras nor radars. “
The challenge of artificial intelligence
These sonars are made up of “transmitting antennas which send sounds to another, receiver which receives the echoes,” continues the head of the large group. To these, MyDataModels, located in Sophia Antipolis, added algorithms making it possible to “classify the threat, if it is one or not, but also to determine which threats it is, develops Félix Kudelka, responsible the development of the start-up. Thus, thanks to behavioral criteria such as speed or trajectory, it is possible to tell if it is a diver or a drone. We also hear the sound produced by the detected object ”.
The demonstrators are not yet on loan, only tests are being carried out in Nice or near Toulon. The objective is to “be able to secure the Marseille Marina during the Olympic Games in 2024 for example”, indicates Marc Delorme. It lists the possibility of installing Blue Guard permanently in military zones but also during one-off events such as the Cannes Film Festival or the organization of G20 or G7 in a coastal city. The underwater product line manager specifies that “sonar is adapted to the geography of the area to be protected. We can put them up to 2 km out to sea and then add more depending on the terrain, whether to form a circle, a square or a star. “
These objects thus make it possible “to offer a reaction time of 15 minutes to then deploy the appropriate means” to intercept the threat. Very important for the Nice Côte d’Azur metropolis, which carried this project through the “Blue innovation challenge”, which “identifies companies with innovative solutions in the maritime sector” since 2020. The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, has insisted on the importance of this technology, in particular since “the feedbacks” of events such as the attack of July 14, 2016. For him, “it has become a requirement” to “secure the coastal areas” of “Those who want to tackle coastal towns by sea”.
A project that does not “disturb marine biodiversity”
Install objects in the water that emit sounds, yes, but what about the marine inhabitants? The underwater product line director at Thales, Marc Delorme, assures us: “We are in configurations which have taken into account the possibility of disturbing marine biodiversity. We then placed ourselves on a frequency which is above the disturbing frequency band and at emission levels which are not too strong for that. The best proof is that, during the tests in Nice, a dolphin came to play around the system, he did not seem disturbed. “