Kerala - Kochi   

NPOL team to receive ‘Agni’ award today

KOCHI: The Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL) at Kakkand here, which is the only Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) unit in Kerala, will add gloss to its reputation on Monday when its scientific team receives the DRDO’s highest team honour, Agni, from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a ceremony in Delhi.

The award, for developing the submarine Sonar technology that has been successfully inducted by the Navy, underscores NPOL’s core competence in developing underwater surveillance technologies. The ‘Agni award for self-reliance’ with a Rs.5 lakh purse is awarded to the successful effort of a team of scientists that helps the nation to stand on its own feet in an area of defence technology. Project director S. Vijayan Pillai, whose team developed the Sonar technology indigenously, will receive the award.

The NPOL, only one of its kind in the country, has previously received awards of best systems laboratory and best science laboratory as well as several other honours.

The Sonar (short for `sound navigation and ranging’) is basically a remote-sensing technique that uses sound waves to detect, locate and identify objects in water. The Navy uses the technology for detection of submarines, sea mines and torpedoes. Its civilian uses include determining water depth, mapping the ocean floor and locating objects in the ocean such as fish shoals. The Sonar emits pulses of sound waves (from a source such as a submarine) that travel through water, reflect off the target and return to the source.

By learning the speed of sound in water and the time for the sound wave to travel to the target and back, the computers can quickly calculate the distance between the submarine and the target.

The main component of the Sonar equipment is an electro-acoustic transducer (transducer is a device that converts energy from one form to another) that is fitted on to the hull of a ship or submarine.

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