Marine camera, integrated software offer improved underwater surveillance, security
Presence Technologies (OPT), incorporated the Lyyn technology into his company’s family of underwater cameras to create enhanced monitoring devices for tropical sea life.
An avid conservationist, Aston has been on a mission to create the MantaCam — a real-time video transmission of the movements of the manta ray, a large, bat-like fish often found in tropical waters. Aston coupled his knowledge of computer hardware and software design with his interest in underwater photography and scuba diving, to create the MantaCam, and a family of continuous underwater video monitoring systems that can be controlled over the Internet.
The systems can be applied to commercial and industrial applications to extend the range of viewing activities to below the water surface or to high humility locations. These solar-powered industrial camera systems can be placed anywhere on the planet and can connect to Internet-controllable video cameras mounted or suspended several hundred feet below oceans, lakes, rivers, or in manmade ponds and tanks. Self-powered monitoring stations can transmit data several miles using a wireless network.
There are four separate models featuring a pan-tilt-zoom system which can be directed to photograph the surroundings in various directions using the Internet with a cable connection or a wireless system.
OPT is marketing the cameras to government and private security and surveillance agencies with an eye to protecting vulnerable waterfront sites. The company plans to focus on public and private agencies responsible for monitoring critical waterways such as the New York-New Jersey Port Authority, as well as other coastal and inland ports throughout the United States and around the world.
The cameras can be operated under extreme conditions such as high humidity, low light, or highly corrosive environments. The system can be used to secure private as well as public sites, including water treatment plants, oil drilling sites, nuclear facilities, material transporting operations, or heavy metal manufacturers. Using specially designed security equipment, the cameras are impossible to remove illegally once installed.
The original MantaCam led to the development of the four additional underwater, high resolution, high-definition cameras; the OceanCam HD, the AquariCam, the OceanCam, and the Deep OceanCam, all available through Ocean Presence Technologies.
For Aston, the cameras are the realization of a long-term plan to provide a “telepresence” experience for schools with the creation of visual aquariums where students from around the world may view the Manta Ray and other sea creatures in their natural environment, using their laptop computers.
“Environmentalists now have the ideal equipment needed to watch the evolution of the world’s oceans and seaways and educate the general public and government officials on the critical need to protect these precious resources,” Aston concluded.
