BY ZVIKA RUBINS- GLOBES 

Controp specializes in the development and production of electro-optical and precision darkness motion control systems for security and surveillance. The company's specialists have over 25 years of experience in electro-optics, electronics, servo-control, precision mechanics and software. Controp provides some of the most innovative solutions for surveillance and reconnaissance activities used in the world today.

It wasn’t a terrorist attack, just a transformer that collapsed at Niagara Falls. That was the authorities’ explanation for the power failure in mid-August 2003 that blacked out entire cities in the east of the United States and Canada.
It was the biggest power failure in the history of North America– probably the biggest in history. An emergency was declared in the state of New York, in the city of Detroit, and in Canada’s Ontario region. In Cleveland a water shortage was reported. Around 50 million people were stuck in colossal traffic jams made worse by the collapse of public transportation. In New York City, tens of thousands of people had to be rescued from buildings. Thousands of others weretrapped in the underground train system and in elevators. The power failure happened shortly before rush hour, when people leave their offices on their way home. Twenty-one power stations and nine nuclear powered reactors ceased to function within three minutes. New York’s three airports were paralyzed as were dozens of large airports in other cities.

Enormous traffic gridlocks formed in the cities that were cut off from electrical power as traffic lights went out, and underground trains ground to a halt. The cellular telephone networks collapsed. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to calm the residents with interviews on the television networks – but of course most people couldn’t watch or listen to him, because there was no electricity.
This power failure that closed down the east coast of North America lit up some warning signals among homeland security experts in the United States – and indeed, across the world. They tried to imagine such a paralysis as part of a terror operation. Suppose well-organized terrorist cells had seized control of power installations as the first phase of an attack and then, under cover of darkness, moved to take control of other vital facilities in New York – schools, administration buildings, and so forth. Impossible? Not really. A scenario involving darkness and a terrorist takeover requires the security forces to deploy accordingly. This deployment requires peripheral protection of sensitive installations, using systems to detect infiltrators and penetration.

These systems should be able to detect intrusion in bad visibility or even in total darkness. Most detection and surveillance systems in use today require costly monitors – people who physically sit and watch and hopefully detect an invader with their own eyes. Shlomo Nir, CEO of the Israeli company Controp, based in Hod Hasharon, refers to ordinary surveillance systems as “non-smart systems.” Nir heads one of the few companies in the world that manufacture smart surveillance and observation systems – ones that can detect an invader and zero in on him automatically, even in total darkness. “Our systems are already in use in Israel in several regions, with American forces in Afghanistan, and in other places in the world which I’d rather not detail,” Nir said. Controp makes cameras and electronic surveillance systems that work with thermal imaging cameras and are designed to detect invaders as part of peripheral protection. In Controp’s laboratories, advanced airborne surveillance cameras for use on drones and other aircraft can be found alongside ground based surveillance systems such as the Spider, which is intended to be mounted on the back of a mobile vehicle or on a high pillar, and the stationary Cedar ground based surveillance system which is intended to be mounted on a fixed platform.

Anyone who visited Greece during the 2004 Olympic Games and took a romantic nocturnal stroll along the harbor might have been watched by one of Controp’s Cedar systems. The company’s products that are adapted to guard coastlines, harbors and ports were installed along the harbors and ports of the Greek shore, becoming smart eyes for Greek security forces. Coastal protection requires relatively complex technology because terrorists arriving by sea have the advantage of a “curtain” created by the waves and therefore intruder detection in moving waters is no easy task. It is not that simple a mission for the human eye either. The success of its products in Greece and the increased awareness of homeland security issues in the United States led Controp to establish a subsidiary in the United States in the past year – Controp USA Inc.

* Published by GLOBES in Homeland Security Magazine, October 2004