Upgraded network to track ships gets Navy award

An upgraded network to track ships sailing off Israel’s coast and a simulator to test submarine torpedoes in a lab are some of the Israel Navy’s new technologies which received awards this month for innovation and cost effectiveness.

One of the projects, which received a commendation from Brig.-Gen Moshe Zana, commander of the navy’s Materiel Command, was developed by Maj. V. and enables the testing of torpedoes in a laboratory setting without the need to actually fire the weapon.

“This way we can upgrade the weapon, make changes and then test it without having to fire it out at sea,” Maj. V. said, adding that one recent upgrade was tested on a torpedo in a laboratory around 100 times, something that would otherwise have cost tens of millions of shekels if one of Israel’s submarines would have needed to sail out to sea and test fire the torpedo each time.

“Until today to do this we had to fire the torpedo,” he said.

“Now we can attach sensors to the torpedo and test it in a lab as if it has been fired out at sea.”

Israel’s submarines are the military’s most expensive platform and are often referred to as the country’s second-strike doomsday weapon due to their reported ability to fire cruise missiles tipped with nuclear warheads.

Another commendation was awarded to Maj. Yishai Burganim, a computer officer at the navy’s Ashdod Base for developing a new network that enables the navy to operate its coastal radar systems from a single command post.

The new system, Burganim said, allows the navy to create a radar image of shipping vessels at sea faster than before and at the same time improve its ability to identify malfunctions on one of the radar systems connected to the network.

“Now, we can get the information faster and while using less networks,” he said.

Another system awarded by Zana enables more cost-effective maintenance of navy vessels.

Zana said that he decided to award the various projects with the aim of encouraging creative and innovative thinking among the navy’s technical units. He said that a lot of the systems used by the navy were developed “in-house” since Israel did not have major defense firms which specialize in naval platforms.

“We are an extremely technological branch,” Zana said.

“Our goal is always to discover the future and bring it to us as quickly as possible.”