Navy Deploys 17 Sensor Vans to Hunt Shoreline Swimmers
By Miriam Adler ·
Divers and coastal residents are reduced to target icons on 19-inch screens as Naval Reserve units use commercial sensors to track every movement in the shallows.
It is a transportable command center measuring 8 feet by 20 feet. Inside the AN/TSQ-108A Radar Sonar Surveillance Center (RSSC) van, the world is reduced to a series of sensor feeds, acoustic signatures, and target tracks. According to a program description hosted by the FAS Intelligence Resource Program, this van serves as the heart of the US Navy's Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare (MIUW) units.
The mission is defined by the "littoral areas." In naval terms, the littoral is the shore—the shallow water where the ocean meets the land, the space where civilian fishing boats, pleasure craft, and coastal communities exist. The MIUW units, operated exclusively by the Naval Reserve, are tasked with providing surface and subsurface surveillance in these zones throughout the world. They are the watchers of the shallows.
A 10 Km Line-of-Sight
The baseline for this operation was forged during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. In the sands of the Gulf, the Navy relied on the SPS-64 radar and the AN/SQR-17A for processing sonar buoys. Lookouts used binoculars or electronic imaging to classify what they saw. But the experience of that deployment, coupled with the rapid acceleration of the private sector, prompted a pivot. The Navy decided to upgrade the system, not by inventing new proprietary weapons, but by absorbing the commercial world.
The MIUW System Upgrade Program leaned heavily on "off-the-shelf equipment." This is a recurring theme in modern state power: the ability to take technology designed for civilian commerce and repurpose it for the projection of force. The result was the Mobile Sensor Platform (MSP), a sensor suite bolted onto a HMMWV. This allowed the Navy to move its eyes and ears with maximum site flexibility, deploying a Thermal Imaging Sensor (TIS) and a Visual Imaging Sensor (VIS) on a computer-controlled pan and tilt mechanism.
These sensors, along with a Furuno X-Band surface search radar, beam their data back to the RSSC van via a microwave transceiver. The reach is a 10 Km line-of-sight distance, though the record notes a capability for future upgrades to fiber-optic cable. The HMMWV becomes a remote outpost, a digital sentinel that feeds a centralized hub.
Document imagery from irp.fas.org From the files: irp.fas.org
The V3 Configuration
Inside the upgraded "V3" van, the sensory input is synthesized by the Graphical Data Fusion System (GDFS). This software does not just present data; it correlates it, overlaying sensor information onto a digitized map. On a single 19-inch screen, supported by a TAC-4 workstation, an operator sees the geographic picture, their own location, the location of the sensors, and the target tracks.
The terminology here is telling. The display is described as "user friendly," featuring scalable maps and pop-up windows. It uses NTDS symbology to represent targets. When a human being in a boat or a diver in the water is reduced to a "target icon" on a 19-inch screen, the distance between the observer and the observed is absolute. The operator can store and replay target data, routing it into case files or the Joint Maritime Command Information System (JMCIS). It is the digitization of the shoreline, where the fluid movement of the sea is frozen into a database.
Document imagery from irp.fas.org From the files: irp.fas.org
Close-in Swimmer Detection
While the radar and thermal imaging handle the surface, the Navy turned its attention downward. The upgrade included a passive underwater array sensor string, configured to be deployed from a small boat. When combined with sonar buoys and the upgraded acoustic processor, the MIUW units gained a significantly improved capability for shallow water surveillance.
The record indicates that the Navy's ambitions did not stop at passive listening. The program description notes that the "development of omni passive strings and active sonars for close-in swimmer detection are under consideration for future inclusion."
Active sonar does not merely listen; it pings. It sends a pulse of sound into the water to bounce off a target. In the context of "swimmer detection," this represents a shift toward a more aggressive form of littoral monitoring. It is the move from observing a coastline to actively hunting for individuals in the water.
The MIUW System Upgrade program, sponsored by OPNAV N852G and managed by the Office of Special Technology, aimed for a comprehensive overhaul of the fleet. The FAS record, updated in February 2000, notes that six upgraded RSSC van systems had been delivered at that time, with 11 more in production. The goal was to re-outfit most MIUW units nationwide by the end of the decade, proceeding at a rate of five vans per year.