Florida port deploys Coda Octopus's Underwater Inspection System

New York-based Coda Octopus Group announced what it called the first deployment by a local law enforcement agency in the United States since the 9/11 attacks of a new generation of port security technology to respond to underwater threats. The company received an order from the City of Jacksonville, Florida, to deliver its Underwater Inspection System (UIS), developed for the United States Coast Guard, to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, whose team of public safety / bomb squad divers will be using the system on their small patrol vessels. The UIS uses Coda’s patented real time 3D sonar technology, the Coda Echoscope, to identify and classify objects underwater, thus allowing for more rapid and effective searches of ports and waterways. Coda expects to deliver the UIS, which has already been deployed by the USCG and in the Middle East and Asia, to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office within the next thirty days. The company also said that a large number of U.S. ports have expressed interest in the UIS, and that it expects to be able to confirm at least one additional order during the next sixty days.

“The UIS will greatly enhance our capability to safeguard our ports and underwater critical infrastructure” said Chief Roy Henderson, who heads the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Homeland Security Division. Jason Reid, Coda Octopus president and CEO, said he viewed the Jacksonville order as a “significant milestone” for Coda Octopus. He commented that “It was shortly after 9/11 that I had my first view of a 3D real time sonar device in its earliest prototype form, and the Company’s commitment to commercialize this technology was indeed inspired by the attacks. It has been a long journey, but we always envisaged the ports of the United States as a very large and important market for these devices. Today, we are more certain than ever of the size of this potential market, the uniqueness and appropriateness of the technology and of the products we have to offer, and of the interest on the part of US Coast Guard and of large numbers of port authorities throughout the United States.”

Coda Technologies was founded in 1994. Today the Coda Octopus Group comprises five companies. The company’s Coda Echoscope is the first real time 3D sub sea sonar, and is the core of the Coda Underwater Inspection System. he UIS is being adopted for homeland security in ports around the world, and ti has the added benefit of being linked to land based surveillance systems using secure wireless communications.