Apr 26 2010
TerraEchos Inc., a leading provider of covert intelligence and surveillance sensor systems, has signed an OEM agreement with IBM to embed IBM InfoSphere Streams in the TerraEchos Adelos™ S4 solution. TerraEchos is the first commercial firm to license InfoSphere Streams in the world.
TerraEchos enables organizations to protect and monitor critical infrastructure and secure borders. Based on advanced fiber-optic acoustic sensor technology licensed from the U.S. Navy, TerraEchos’ Adelos S4 solution helps meet growing security demands for government, energy, public safety and transportation. IBM InfoSphere Streams is a high-performance computing technology that rapidly analyzes information as it streams from thousands of real-time sources, increasing the speed and accuracy of decision making.
“Given the data processing and analytical challenges associated with the Adelos Sensor Array, InfoSphere Streams is the right solution for us and our customers; it makes sensor fusion a reality,” said Dr. Alex Philp, President and CEO of TerraEchos Inc. “We look forward to growing our strategic relationship with IBM across various sectors and markets to help revolutionize the concepts of Sensor as Service.”
The Adelos S4 technology is comprised of a fiber-optic sensor buried in the ground or underwater to gather real-time acoustic information. These data are analyzed and the sound patterns are matched against complex algorithms to determine what made the noise. Incorporating InfoSphere Streams, the system can instantly identify, distinguish, and classify a variety of objects detected by the fiber-optic sensor array.
For example, to monitor the security and performance of an oil pipeline, a company could bury the sensors strategically throughout the pipeline corridor at specific locations. The complex sound patterns made by a security breech or problem in the pipeline, such as change in flow dynamics or impacts on the pipeline exterior, would be captured by the sensor array and instantly analyzed. Within seconds, the pipeline operator would be alerted to the problem, potential cause and where along the miles of pipeline it was located.
"As a licensee of U.S. Navy technology, TerraEchos has been committed to the successful commercialization of technology that previously had been proven very successful in military applications," said Dr. Theresa Baus, Head, Technology Partnerships Enterprise Office, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport, R.I. "TerraEchos' licensing agreement with IBM is a key milestone in transitioning this sensor technology for commercial purposes."
TerraEchos selected InfoSphere Streams as the engine that processes approximately 1600 MB per second of data in motion that are continuously generated from the fiber optic sensor array. The processing capacity of InfoSphere Streams enables Adelos S4 to analyze all of the data streaming from the sensors. The technology enables Adelos to match the sound patterns against an extensive library of algorithms, giving TerraEchos the most robust classification system in the industry. In addition, TerraEchos is working with its strategic partner, GCS Research, also of Missoula, in optimizing Streams for real-time next-generation geospatial analytics.