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Unified State System for Illumination of the Surface and Underwater Enivironement (EGSONPO) Unified System of Illumination Information on the Marine Environment (ESIMO)

In the field of information support for maritime activities “Marine Doctrine of the Russian Federation for the period until 2020”, approved by the President of the Russian Federation in 2001, the creation of a unified state system for lighting the surface and underwater conditions (EGSONPO) has been identified as one of the priority areas for ensuring Russia's national security.

In accordance with the Concept for the creation and maintenance of a unified state system for lighting the surface and underwater conditions (hereinafter referred to as the Concept), the main goal of the creation and functioning of the EGSONPO is to improve the information support of all types of maritime activities of the Russian Federation by forming a secure information space containing data on location, condition and actions surface and underwater objects, taking into account data on the state of the marine environment and the regulated use of the specified space by all interested bodies of state and non-government administration.

EGSONPO is created on the basis of forces and means of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, means of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring and other interested federal executive bodies in order to integrate and rationally use the capabilities of systems, complexes and means of various departmental subordination in the field of information about location, condition and the actions of surface and underwater objects in the operational zones of the fleets and areas of marine economic activity, and other operationally important areas of the World Ocean.

In 2000, by the order of the President of the Russian Federation, the "Fundamentals of the Russian Federation policy in the field of naval activities until 2010" were approved. One of the priority areas of the "Fundamentals ..." was the creation and deployment of the Unified System of Illumination in the World Ocean. In December 2010, the “Strategy for the Development of the Marine Activities of the Russian Federation until 2030” was put into effect with a similar objective.

The creation of a system for lighting the situation in the Arctic is of extreme importance for the country, which is recorded in documents at the highest state level. Considering that the territory of the Russian Federation is especially vulnerable from the ice of the Arctic using nuclear and high-precision missile weapons, the underwater lighting system (FOSS) should play a large role in the lighting system in the Arctic.

At the end of February 2015, a meeting of the board of the Ministry of Defense was held on the security of the country's Arctic borders. During this event, the leaders of the military department, headed by Minister Sergei Shoigu, discussed various aspects of the development of the armed forces in the Arctic and the necessary measures to ensure the security of this region. It is planned to build military camps, rebuild airfields and build new facilities. In addition, several new systems of strategic importance for the country's security are expected to be deployed in the Arctic.

In addition to new military facilities in the northern regions of the country, components of the Unified Arctic Lighting System should appear. Using this system, it is planned to monitor the air, surface and underwater conditions, which will allow timely notice of emerging threats and take the necessary measures. One of the main elements of the new complex should be the so-called.

The Unified State System for Illumination of the Surface and Underwater Conditions (EGSONPO), which will work in the interests of the Navy. Its main task will be to collect information about the situation in the northern seas, as well as search for various ships, submarines and other potentially dangerous objects. It should be noted that the development of EGSONPO started a long time ago - a corresponding order appeared at the beginning of the two thousandths. Nevertheless, to date, only some individual elements of such a system have been created, and the start of operation of a full-fledged complex so far belongs to the foreseeable future. Such features of the project cannot but arouse concern of the military department, specialists and the public who are interested. In recent weeks, even a real discussion has unfolded in the domestic press about the prospects for monitoring the Arctic.

Effective provision, on the part of EGSONPO, of the tasks inherent in military command and control bodies, is impossible without the organization of information support from the military circuit (VK) of ESIMO regarding the presentation and exchange of hydrometeo-information, including information on the hydroacoustic characteristics (GAC) of the World Ocean.

The difficulty of solving the problem of information support of EGSONPO by ESIMO is, first of all, in the fact that it is necessary to integrate the interests of the Ministries and departments of the Russian Federation that are part of EGSNPO (primarily the Navy) and Roshydromet, as well as to develop a unified organizational and technical policy of its implementation.

On the other hand, to solve this problem, it is necessary to develop a technology for the creation, maintenance and use of geospatial databases in terms of characteristics of the oceans by creating electronic information and reference guides (ESP) for assessing GAC in marine areas, which should be an integral part of the information database ESIMO.

To ensure the functioning of the EGSSPA, it may be necessary, along with other functions of the system, to illuminate the current and expected (forecast) sonar conditions in a given area of ??the World Ocean and in a given period of time. Performing this function requires knowledge of the hydroacoustic conditions of a given water area and, most importantly, the current and expected (forecast) conditions of hydroacoustic detection of surface and underwater targets with hydroacoustic means (GAS) for various purposes. This, in turn, will require numerical modeling of the expected detection ranges of surface and underwater targets with hydroacoustic means.

Today there are opportunities to solve these problems and eliminate problems as soon as possible. The low-cost way to create and deploy an underwater illumination system and to modernize sonar equipment and systems is to use special equipment developed on the basis of digital technology with unique mathematical software. The modernization of hydroacoustic systems could make the creation of the Unified State System of tracking of surface and underwater conditions a reality.

A likely complement (as part of a network-centric approach) or a full-fledged component of Harmony will be MGK-608 complexes of various adaptations , the hydrophones (receiving elements) of which involve installation to a depth of one kilometer and a distance of up to 200 kilometers from the coast. Acoustic data obtained by the bottom sensors after digitization should be transmitted via fiber-optic cable line to the shore post for further analysis.

Without the “Harmony” (in the broad sense) and MGK-608 (in the narrow sense), the Russian Armed Forces are in fact unable to track and identify foreign submarines in their own Arctic waters.