Navy taps ObjectVideo for ship surveillance

ObjectVideo Inc. won a contract from the Office of Naval Research to assist in the development of new surveillance software to protect ships in port from terrorist attacks, the company announced today.

The three-year contract is worth about $1 million, the company said.

Under the contract, ObjectVideo of Reston, Va., will provide surveillance systems that will enable a ship's security watch to detect and respond and to potentially threatening movements by other vessels.

The contract was awarded under the Office of Naval Research for the Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project, the company said.

The project's goal is to create a video-based security system for Navy ships that would allow personnel to identify threats that are approaching the ship from a specified distance by either land or water.

This can be accomplished by mounting a camera capable of 360-degree continuous surveillance on the mast of the ship. The addition of "intelligence" to video surveillance systems provides users with a higher probability of threat detection, significantly lower false alarm rates and greater control over how security resources are deployed within an organization, the company said.

The Navy is seeking new surveillance methods because many ports do not allow the use of traditional radar systems. Even in ports where they are allowed, radar systems are frequently compromised by the large amount of traffic and clutter in busy port facilities.

ObjectVideo, a developer of intelligent video surveillance software for physical security applications for government and commercial customers, has 40 employees.