New Underwater Inspection System for LA County Sheriffs

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) has taken delivery of a new CodaOctopus Underwater Inspection System (UIS) to aid in real-time threat assessment, hazardous object identification and change detection.

The UIS was sold and delivered by Coda Octopus Group, Inc. for a contract value of $665,000.

“Members of LASD - Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB) were extremely pleased to take delivery of this state-of-the-art piece of equipment, which they will use mainly for counter-smuggling/terrorism (CBRNE screening), seafloor search and recovery of evidence and targets and to assist in dive related operations,” LASD said.

LASD is the largest sheriff’s department in the U.S. and has over 18,000 employees providing service to over 3 million residents over more than 4,000 square miles.

The LASD joins around 35 ports (mostly in the USA) to adopt the CodaOctopus UIS which embeds patented real time 3D sonar technology in real time. The ports that are currently utilizing our UIS are largely using this for port applications such as maritime security, port and harbor maintenance, channel clearance, search and recovery, intruder detection and classification, rapid assessment of storm damage, location of objects on the seabed and change detection in the port environment.

Coda Octopus said its UIS is increasingly becoming the tool of choice for port activities involving rapid real time assessment of risks in these environments as this unique technology provides photograph-like real time 3D images of underwater environments even in the harshest of conditions such as zero visibility. This allows users to make critical instantaneous decisions concerning subsea activities.  Further, this easy to use system and clear crisp photograph like images which it generates allows non-specialized personnel to use the system, thus further enhancing its versality and accessibility across ports.

“LASD members completed the initial orientation/training and found the images that it generates are truly state-of-the-art and will advance the manner in which they conduct many of their port activities concerning real time assessment of threats, identification of hazardous objects and change detection within sensitive areas of their ports and critical waterways,” LASD said. “LASD (SEB) Maritime Personnel were equally impressed with the ease of deployment of the Coda 3D system and intuitive nature of its operation. LASD believes that the investment in this state of the art piece of equipment will further advance our activities in the area of real time threat assessment.”

Coda Octopus President of Technology, Blair Cunningham, said, “Our agreement with the LASD provides ongoing support for their users and we look forward to working with them to expose the full exciting capabilities of this system.  We believe this Underwater Inspection System is far superior to other sonar technology in the market today as our industry-leading Echoscope technology generates real time images of the underwater environment in three/four dimensions even in zero visibility conditions. Furthermore, uniquely, it can image moving objects in the water column, thus enabling agents and personnel to address many risks and hazards that ports face in this technologically advanced age.”