HISS: Harbour intrusion simulator system

This paper introduces a simulation tool (ldquoHISSrdquo) to assess the level of underwater security in civilian harbour installations. The simulator is based on a geographical information system, and on acoustic and magnetic underwater sensor models. The final objective of the simulator is to improve port security verifying the impact of new sensors and modification in the sensors placement in the overall harbour protection system. In particular, starting from the geographical and environmental information (bathymetry, water sound speed, ship traffic, etc.), and from the sensor characteristics as generally made available by manufacturers (frequency, source level, beam pattern, etc.) HISS is able to produce area coverage maps and anti-intrusion figure of merits (as expected intruder halt distance from a target) that are directly related to the anti-intrusion performance.