Foster-Miller, Inc., announced today that it has received an additional $266,000 from the U.S. Coast Guard to continue testing Boat Trap, a non-lethal net device being developed to help stop non-compliant boats. Foster-Miller and the Coast Guard Research and Development Center in Groton, CT, have been working on this net concept for about three years. It is based on ballistically deployed net technology developed and patented by Foster-Miller in the 1990s.
A Boat Trap net is packaged in a canister and can be dropped from a helicopter flying above a non-compliant vessel (the man in the photo is holding the canister). Once the net is released, a charge blows open the canister, causing the net to spread out in all directions and float down to the water. When the boat runs over the net, the propeller and intakes are entangled, rendering the boat motor inoperable.
“Foster-Miller appreciates the continuing support of the U.S. Coast Guard in the development of these nets,” said Dr. William Ribich, president of Foster-Miller. “It is important for the public to know that our Coast Guard is vigilant in searching for better, safer ways to protect our waterways.”
Foster-Miller, Inc., is an independent, privately held engineering, development and manufacturing company located in suburban Boston, MA, with additional offices in Albany, NY and Washington, DC. The firm was founded almost 50 years ago by three graduates of MIT who believed there was a need for a company that could solve clients’ difficult technical problems through first-class analysis and design. Foster-Miller has a staff of more than 350 mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, nuclear, aerospace, software and materials engineers as well as metallurgists, physicists, mathematicians, chemists, biologists and support staff working in the areas of robotics, advanced materials, custom machinery, power systems, biotechnology, aerospace and transportation.
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