Buoys to warn Austrailia

(SAIC) has been awarded a contract for the production and delivery of Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART) systems by

. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

SAIC will provide two DART buoy systems as a change-over and first line spare for their initial buoy systems. The buoys consist of three subsytsems: a surface communications buoy, a mooring and a bottom pressure recorder. They’re expected to be deployed in the Tasman and Coral seas, with delivery of the first detection buoy scheduled for February 2008.

The buoys measure sea level and report back, through satellites, to tsunami warning centres where the information is processed. The system allows the source of the tsunami to be estimated and a better forecast to be made, helping warning systems and evacuations.

‘This project is a major step forward in supporting Australia’s efforts to establish their national tsunami warning system,’ said Robert Lawson, vice-president and director of SAIC’s Tsunami Buoy Program. ‘SAIC has invested heavily in producing a commercially available, fully operational, tsunami detection system built to a set of published standards and subject to stringent US government testing requirements. Since the devastating Sumatra tsunami in December 2004, we have been developing and testing a dependable system that meets international requirements.’

SAIC has also designed and deployed buoys for US government agencies and used this experience to develop their commercial model.