Tech: AVA just won a contract to protect US nuclear power plants

With great power comes great responsibility.

Maybe that’s why AVA Risk Group Limited (ASX: AVA) will pull in $862,000 to protect important national critical infrastructure in North America, including a nuclear power plant.

Shareholders liked the news, sending stock up more than 8 per cent in early morning trade:

AVA’s momentum was already under steam though. Late last week it announced it that the Indian Air Force would pay $5 million for its Future Fibre Technology (FFT) technology to protect 23 airbases.

What does FFT actually do?

In a nutshell, FFT builds “smart fences”. They include an integrated security system that involves CCTV cameras, infra-red devices, motion detectors, and anti-penetration and thermal sensors.

It’s all pulled together on FFT’s AI platform Aura Ai-2, and backed by drones and surveillance devices.

The platform was launched in early 2017.

Try to cut, climb or lift AVA’s perimeter fences and Aura Ai-2 will instantly pinpoint the intrusion and sound the alarm. Obviously for security reasons, there won’t be a lot more detail on how it actually works so well, but AVA says it can provide total security for anything that comes within two metres of 80km of fenceline, or five metres of anything within 110km of underground cable.

AVA Risk Group CEO Scott Basham said the recent contracts also followed a “successful deployment” of FFT Aura Ai-1 on a nuclear power plant in the Middle East.

In other ASX tech news today

The world’s largest manufacturer of woven shirts will use YPB Group’s (ASX: YPB) Anti-Counterfeit tracer thread in clothing labels for two of their “major brand clients”. Esquel Group makes clothes for Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Brooks Brothers, Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, J Crew, Anta and Nike. It will pay YPB $21,000 for an initial order of AC fibre, but YPB hopes it’s the start of a bigger partnership.

The brand is able to use YPB’s scanner to detect whether or not the AC fibres are present in each shirt label. YPB CEO John Houston says cotton shirts “are among the world’s most counterfeited items”.

And drone-maker Mobilicom (ASX:MOB) has just sold more than $280,000 worth of upgrades to Israel’s Navy. The upgrade was developed in response to a US ban on certain types of drones used in security operations as a result of backdoor cyberrisks.

Mobilicon says it has now received more than $850,000 in revenue from the Israel Ministry of Defence in 2019.