Research center for subsea infrastructure security opens in The Hague

The Seabed Security Experimentation Center (SeaSEC), the research center for submarine infrastructure security, has officially opened in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Located at Campusatsea in Scheveningen, the SeaSEC research center is committed to safeguarding the subsea infrastructure in the North and Baltic seas through a combination of experiments, testing, and the development of innovative techniques.

The center aims to develop new techniques and enable governments to monitor infrastructure in the North Sea and Baltic Sea up to a depth of 30 meters, including pipelines for oil & gas, platforms on which wind turbines are built and internet cables.

The Netherlands is collaborating with five other countries – Denmark, Germany, Finland, Norway and Sweden – to protect submarine infrastructure and the researchers will have access to data from military and civilian databases from these countries. Among other things, they want to create a virtual image of the seabed, on which any threats to the submarine infrastructure immediately become visible.

SeaSEC also has a test area in the sea of ​18 by 18 kilometers in which unmanned surveillance vehicles can make test rounds. During this first test campaign, DEMCON unmanned systems said it had demonstrated the monitoring capabilities of one of its uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) to enhance situational awareness (SA) and understanding (SU) related to seabed security.

The establishment of the SeaSEC is part of the Northern Naval Capability Cooperation (NNCC) initiative. The plan is to eventually open SeaSEC branches in Sweden and Germany.