08 Feb 2016
A BUSINESS from Yeovil will play a key role in showcasing a project to make the seas safer at an international exhibition next month.
Intelligent Enterprise Products (IEP) will be part of a collective of local businesses demonstrating a "detect and respond" system to enable a more coordinated response to dangerous situations at sea.
The system will involve a hovercraft, a quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a self-contained mobile shelter.
It will be presented to potential customers at the International Exhibition for Security and National Resilience in Abu Dhabi in March. The businesses will be hoping to tap into the £5BN of exports from the UK to UAE each year. The last time the exhibition was held 400 exhibitors from 86 countries took part.
IEP briefed local business leaders on the work they are carrying out at presentation on Monday, January 25 at the Yeovil Innovation Centre, where the company is based.
The firm explained how it was working to combine video images from a UAV or drone with other video feeds from a hovercraft, so that decision makers working for the coastguard or in maritime security can see multiple angles of urgent situations at the same time.
The different views could even be viewed remotely from deployable command centres stored inside shipping containers, provided by Weatherhaven Global Solutions.
Following IEP's presentation Mark Lawrence from Skydroid piloted a UAV for a live demonstration of the drone's thermal imaging and high definition cameras.
The project is being coordinated by the BISEN Group, which has offices in Sherborne, with the support of the Government.
Managing Director of the BISEN Group, Nick MacLeod-Ash, explained how the "detect and respond" system could be used for a quicker and better informed response to variety of situations such as search and rescue, emergency disaster relief, casualty evacuation, pollution control and to transport patients and medical teams.
The hovercraft is currently being shipped to Abu Dhabi where the combined system will undergo three weeks of trials and then be demonstrated at the International Exhibition for Security and National Resilience (ISNR) from March 15-17.