Special to WorldTribune.com

TEL AVIV — Israel has overseen a university project to develop fiber optics for a border security system.

The Defense Ministry has awarded a contract to Tel Aviv University for the development of a fiber optic perimeter security system.

Under the 30-month project, the university’s Ramot technology company would receive $650,000 to develop a command and control component along with DITS Solutions. The grant was meant to cover 50 percent of the development costs.

“Our research and development efforts in the last decade have focused on the development of distributed sensors and quasi-distributed to transform vibration and acoustic signals, over long distances, into digital data,” Avishay Eyal, a professor at the engineering faculty of Tel Aviv University, said. “Moreover, these data mean nothing but are processed properly.”

The grant to Ramot and DITS was awarded by Meimad, a program by the Defense Ministry and other government departments. Meimad was meant to develop technology with both military and commercial applications.

In the first stage of the project, DITS, a subsidiary of Acorn Energy, and Ramot would produce the so-called Interrogator, the heart of the fiber optics system with Dynamic Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry, developed by Eyal. Organizers said DITS, which specializes in acoustic, sonar and optical fiber sensors, was expected to help produce a low-cost security system that could be marketed in the West.

“In this development program, DITS contribute its unique expertise in
the analysis of acoustic signals to differentiate between background noise
and valuable operational alerts received through a range of fiber optic high
sensitivity D-OFDR,” DITS chief executive officer Benny Sela said.

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