A WINFRITH Newburgh-based company has won two Queen’s awards for business innovation and trade after its groundbreaking technology led to rapid international growth for the firm.

OptaSense, based on the Dorset Green Technology Park in the village, was awarded the Queen’s Award for International Trade and the Queen’s Award for Engineering Innovation.

The company, which was only founded six years ago, specialises in Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) and was presented with the award for international trade by the Queen’s Lord Lieutenant for Dorset Angus Campbell at its base.

In the past six years, the company has gone from strength to strength and after just starting with three people in 2008, now employs around 180 people in seven offices worldwide.

It is now the market leader in DAS technologies, as it uses sensors on optical fibre cables to measure sound and movement and provide real-time visual representations on computers for its customers.

This technology is now used in 40 countries across the world, and is mainly used for the protection and security of oil pipelines. The company uses its technology on an estimated 12,000km of oil pipelines worldwide, and the company can also use it to provide companies with data on how much oil is in an oil well.

As part of the presentation for the award, the company’s founder Dr David Hill took Lord Lt Angus Campbell on a tour of the company’s base and gave him demonstrations on the technologies.

Lord Lt Dorset Angus Campbell said: “It is a true mark of success this award and it really is a magnificent achievement.”

Aside from the oil industry, the company is now moving into road and rail infrastructure, and can provide road and rail companies with real time data if there are any problems, such as traffic build up, on roads.

The award for engineering innovation was presented in a separate ceremony to the company’s Bristol offices.

After collecting the award, Dr David Hill said: “It has been very hard work but very enjoyable work in establishing ourselves but it is only when you get a chance to take a step back from it all when you receive awards like this that you get a chance to see all the different applications involved you realise how incredible the technology is.

“We have had year-on-year double growth and we expect it to continue for a long time to come. We are proof you can achieve global success and grow globally if you have the right idea and put enough hard work into it.”