Sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems
www.blighter.com
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07 Dec 21. Blighter Surveillance Systems (‘Blighter’, www.blighter.com) the British designer and manufacturer of electronic-scanning radars and surveillance solutions, has been awarded a contract to provide its C400 series onshore and offshore installation security radars to protect a cluster of offshore oil platforms and an onshore refinery in West Africa.
Blighter has been selected to provide four C400 series e-scanning radars to provide advanced threat detection for an array of oil platforms and a refinery in West Africa, comprising three offshore platforms and an onshore refinery. The order consists of four 180° Blighter C422 radars split between the facilities which will provide coverage of the land-based perimeter and detection of inbound hostile vessels at distances of up to 20 km. Blighter’s C400 series coastal security radars are optimised for detection of the small shallow-draught vessels favoured by pirates and militants, which sit low in the water and move at speed. The radar units are IP66-rated to provide enhanced protection against extreme marine conditions and is equipped with Blighter’s unique Sea Clutter Filter (SCF) which yields a low false alarm rate. Blighter will provide swift delivery of the coastal threat detection array which will be operational by the end of the year, demonstrating the British SME’s agility and flexibility in meeting the customer’s unique demands after conducting a range of desktop surveillance scenarios in order to determine the best methods of protecting the facilities from pirates and other hostile actors. Blighter radars are deployed in more than 35 countries across the world, delivering round-the-clock all-weather security protection along borders, for coastal facilities, military bases and critical national infrastructure.
Blighter CEO Angus Hone said, “We are pleased to have been awarded this contract, which will demonstrate the best-in-class capabilities of our C400 series onshore and offshore installation security radars in such a demanding environment. Blighter’s cutting-edge e-scan radars are well-suited to the challenges of detecting hostile vessels at sea, and providing vital early detection of threats posed to these facilities and their operators.”
09 Dec 21. RAF and NATO members assess SeaVue. Raytheon Intelligence & Space’s SeaVue surveillance system has been demonstrated during joint military exercises with the RAF and other NATO members. Raytheon has successfully demonstrated its maritime surveillance systems onboard the MQ-9B SeaGuardian RPA in joint exercises for the RAF and other NATO members. The SeaVue radar and AN/DAS-4 Multi-spectral Targeting System both excelled in critical surveillance radar functions for port and board security, SAR and disaster response during operations over land and sea. The company’s SeaVue radar provides enhanced high-altitude persistent surveillance and identifies targets of interest on the surface of the water rapidly and efficiently to support tactical decision making. The AN/DAS-4 sensor suite offers operators HD EO surveillance and full-motion video to identify and engage targets with a high degree of accuracy.
Barbara Borgonovi, vice president of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems for RI&S, commented: ‘unmanned platforms using our solutions can fly higher and [for] longer’.
The demonstrations were led by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, the developer of the SeaGuardian RPA. According to Shephard Defence Insight, SeaVue has been purchased by four countries and can be operated from rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft, ship and land platforms. (Source: News Now/Shephard)
09 Dec 21. Teledyne FLIR Introduces the Addition of Three New Readout Integrated Circuit (ROIC) Devices. Teledyne FLIR, part of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, today announced the new ISC1504, ISC1901, and ISC1902 10-micron pitch readout integrated circuit (ROIC) devices. These devices join the lineup of near-infrared (NIR), mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR), and long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) devices in offthe- shelf ROIC solutions designed for applications ranging from academic research to most demanding military infrared systems.
At 1920 x 1080 resolution, the ISC1504 is the largest format ROIC offered by Teledyne FLIR optimized for InGaAs/VisGaAs detectors and uses a capacitive trans-impedance amplifier (CTIA) input circuit for P-on-N detectors. The ISC1504 supports anti-blooming, input skimming, multiple integration modes, and selectable output modes. A simple user interface with analog outputs allows for easy integration into high-resolution systems.
The ISC1901 (2048 × 1536 resolution) and the ISC1902 (2048 × 2048 resolution) are designed for P-on-N detectors with a direct injection input circuit. Both support single sample or sub-frame averaging for effective well fill of 3M to 19M electrons, respectively. The setting selections allow the user to control various modes such as 2 × 2 binning, 8 or 16 output channels, and additional reverse bias for Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector (QWIP) detectors. The familiar user interface from Teledyne FLIR makes system integration straightforward.
All ROIC devices are probe tested and delivered in wafer form with test data, a user’s guide describing all electrical interfaces, and a mechanical interface database providing the layout information for bump and detector interfaces. With low noise, variable charge storage capacitance, selectable integration times, adjustable gain and power settings, and a simple user interface, Teledyne FLIR mixed-signal ROICs offer a proven, cost-effective design without sacrificing performance or flexibility. Additionally, Teledyne FLIR offers full custom ROIC design services covering trade study, specification, design, testing, and fabrication of wafers. Discover more at www.flir.com/browse/camera-cores-amp-components/roics/.
09 Dec 21. Congress wants Hawaiian missile defense radar up and running by end of 2028. Congress wants the Missile Defense Agency to get a radar installed in Hawaii that can protect the homeland from ballistic missiles by the end of 2028, according to the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act released this week. The House passed the legislation earlier this week and the Senate is expected to take it up for a vote next week. Lawmakers want the agency to include in its FY23 budget request and subsequent future-years defense program funding that is adequate to develop, construct, test and integrate the missile defense radar for homeland defense in Hawaii, according to the provision.
MDA must declare the Hawaiian radar and its associated in-flight interceptor communications system data terminal operational “not later than December 31, 2028,” it states.
While the agency included no funding in its FY22 budget request for the radar, traction for the capability has grown on Capitol Hill among both authorizers and appropriators.
Senate appropriators, in their version of the FY22 defense spending bill, recommended an additional $41m for the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii, or HDR-H.
The committee would also require the MDA director, along with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command commander, to deliver updated unclassified- and classified-level briefs to congressional defense committees on the current and evolving threats and capability of HDR-H to go up against those threats by the end of January 2022, according to language in the bill.
House appropriators would provide $75m in funding for a HDR-H.
Previous MDA budget requests in FY19 and FY20 asked for funding for the discriminating radar as well as another somewhere else in the Pacific. The plan in FY19 was to field the HDR-H, by FY23, which meant military construction would have taken place beginning in FY21. Then in FY20, MDA requested $247.7m for the radar. Lockheed Martin received an award to develop the radar in December 2018.
But in FY21, funding for both the Hawaiian radar and the Pacific radar was missing in the request. MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said in February, when the request was released, that the agency decided to hit the brakes on its plans to set up the radars in the Pacific, instead planning to take a new look at the sensor architecture in the INDOPACOM region to figure out what is necessary to handle emerging threats.
Hill has noted that the area is covered by a forward-deployed AN/TPY-2 radar in Hawaii as well as the deployable Sea-Based X-Band radar. Additionally, Aegis ships with their radars are mobile and can be repositioned as needed to address threats in the near term, he added.
INDOPACOM’s commander placed the HDR-H fourth on his unfunded requirements “wish list” sent to the Hill earlier this year following the release of the FY22 budget request.
The commander wants $41m in research-and-development funding as well as $19 m in military construction money to support an initial operational capability by FY24. The list notes the ask is in line with National Defense Authorization Act guidance over the last six budget cycles.
INDOPACOM listed the HDR-H as an unfunded requirement in FY21 as well.
Meanwhile, the new defense-authorization legislation also supports the establishment of a missile defense architecture in Guam.
MDA requested $78.3m for missile defense in Guam in FY22 and an additional $40m to procure long-lead items for the architecture in Guam, but the agency has yet to unveil what that architecture will look like.
The defense secretary and MDA director, along with the INDOPACOM commander, “shall identify the architecture and acquisition approach for implementing a 360-degree integrated air and missile defense capability to defend the people, infrastructure and territory of Guam from the scope and scale of advanced cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missile threats that are expected to be fielded during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act,” the NDAA language states.
Lawmakers are requiring the Pentagon and MDA, when developing the architecture, to “leverage existing programs of record to expedite the development and deployment of the architecture during the five-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act with an objective of achieving initial operating capability in 2025.”
The programs of record are the Aegis ballistic missile defense system, the Standard Missile-3 and -6 variants, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System and the Integrated Battle Command System. Other systems include the Lower-Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor and “other lower tier capabilities as applicable,” and should consider integrating future systems and interceptors – like directed energy-based kill systems – that have the ability to get after hypersonic missile threats in both glide and terminal phases. The NDAA requires a report no later than 60 days after enactment on the architecture and acquisition approach for the system. (Source: Defense News)
09 Dec 21. Embraer and the Brazilian Army sign Technical Cooperation Agreement to study Artillery Counter-battery Radar System. Embraer and the Department of Science and Technology at the Brazilian Army (DCT) today signed a Technical Cooperation Agreement establishing cooperation in joint studies and analysis of technical and operational concepts, as well as the evaluation of the capabilities needed for the design and development of the Artillery Counter-battery Radar System.
“We are very pleased to sign this Technical Cooperation Agreement with Embraer. In recent decades, the fruitful partnership between the company and the Brazilian Army has consolidated strategic knowledge in radar and border surveillance systems for Brazil, with the implementation and supply of defense systems and military material for benefit Strategic Programs, such as the SISFRON and the Anti-Aircraft Defense. As a result of this joint effort, Brazil now belongs to a group of countries that master radar technology and manufacturing. We are sure that this cooperation will allow us further existing initiatives, perpetuating knowledge, retaining technologies, and expanding strategic capabilities for the Ground Force,” said Army Science and Technology Department Chief, General Guido Amin Naves.
The Cooperation Agreement aims to promote joint preliminary studies of technical and operational concepts in Artillery Counter-battery Radar System. The Agreement will also identify technological and industrial usage for Radar System levels already developed by the Army’s Technological Center in partnership with Embraer for design, research, and development of potential Artillery Counter-battery Radar System that meet Brazilian Army requirements.
“With this agreement, we will expand Embraer’s expertise in research and development of the radar and ground systems field, including sensors and their civilian and military applications. Embraer’s history is a succession of technological challenges, often brought about by the needs of our clients and partners, which has always led us to improve our engineering and industrial expertise in the development, homologation, testing, manufacturing, marketing, and technical support of the most varied products,” said Jackson Schneider, President, and CEO of Embraer Defense & Security.
Embraer is one of the main companies participating in the Brazilian Army’s Integrated Border Monitoring System (SISFRON), one of the largest border surveillance projects in the world, in addition to providing radars and Control and Alert solutions applied to the Army’s Strategic Anti-Aircraft Defense Program.
09 Dec 21. Airbus Imagery and Elevation Data Now Available in Microsoft Azure Maps. Airbus is proud to announce the general availability of their premium satellite imagery and elevation data in Microsoft Azure Maps. Customers of Azure Maps can now access a new global reference layer made from high quality Airbus imagery as well as a homogenous elevation dataset covering the entire globe. Azure Maps is a collection of geospatial services and Software Development Kits (SDKs) that use fresh mapping data to provide geographic context to web and mobile applications. Under the agreement between Airbus and Microsoft, Airbus will feed Azure Maps with its SPOT, Pléiades and Pléiades Neo satellite imagery and WorldDEM4Ortho elevation data. These premium data services will empower the Azure Maps users to build location intelligence solutions for Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence and create data visualizations for web and mobile apps.
07 Dec 21. Long-Range Discrimination Radar Reshapes Adversaries Calculus for Attacks Against US Homeland. The Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Northern Command and the Space Force marked the completion of construction on the long-range discrimination radar site at Clear Space Force Station, Alaska, during a ceremony on Monday. The multi-mission LRDR is designed, for now, to better track incoming ballistic missiles. It combines the capabilities of lower frequency radars — which can track multiple objects in space at long range, but are not able to help warfighters determine which objects are a threat — with the capabilities of higher-frequency radars, which have a more limited field of view but are better able to “discriminate” among multiple objects and figure out what of those is dangerous. As ballistic missiles are launched and shed portions of themselves along their trajectory — including decoy and countermeasure material — the LRDR will help to determine which of those objects must be targeted by the missile defense system.
When fully operational, the multi-face LRDR — equipped with a 220 degree wide field of view and arrays measuring 60 feet high by 60 feet wide — will provide the ability to search, track and discriminate multiple, small objects in space, including all classes of ballistic missiles. Future iterations of the radar’s software will allow it to also track hypersonic missiles.
The information the LRDR provides will increase the effectiveness of the missile defense system and help the U.S. Northern Command better defend the United States.
The capabilities the LRDR provides will also serve as a new kind of deterrent against potential missile attacks by adversaries, said Army Lt. Gen. A.C. Roper, the deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command.
“For years, the Department of Defense has subscribed to a mindset of deterrence through punishment — taking advantage of our global response to execute retaliatory strikes,” Roper said.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has challenged the military to instead approach deterrence from a different perspective: deterrence through denial, Roper said.
“It’s a defense designed to give our potential adversaries pause,” he said. “It is the type of deterrence that shifts cost-benefit calculus, providing doubt that an attack will be successful. And the LRDR helps to shift that calculus.”
The general told those responsible for designing and building the new LRDR system that they have given potential adversaries something to think about if they’re contemplating an attack on the U.S. homeland.
“This long-range discrimination radar is designed to defend the homeland by providing unparalleled ability to search, track and discriminate multiple objects simultaneously,” Roper said. “This radar provides a much-needed improvement to Northcom’s homeland ballistic missile defense mission, ultimately resulting in more effective and efficient employment of the ground-based interceptors.”
Full operational capability for the LRDR is expected in 2023, Navy Vice Adm. Jon A. Hill, director of the Missile Defense Agency said. Right now, the newly built LRDR will be evaluated and integrated into existing systems.
“This initial delivery is an important step to declare that we’re done with a major construction. We are now fully into the test mode of this radar,” Hill said. “That testing is so critical because it pushes you right into the integration, command and control into ground-based midcourse defense. That integration work will be complete and, then, in 2023, we’ll be able to do operational acceptance for Northern Command.”
Right now, the primary requirement met by the LRDR is against a ballistic missile threat, but in future iterations of the LRDR, tracking of hypersonic weapons can also be included without significant changes to the system, Hill said.
“That is what the radar filters are designed to go after,” Hill said. “To bring in what I call a filter — which means you can then space your tracking and your timing to go to hypersonic — that’s not a big leap … that is a software upgrade, but it is not the driving requirement for LRDR today.” (Source: US DoD)
07 Dec 21. RADA teases new exMHR radar for mobile Iron Dome variants. On 14 November 2021 RADA announced the receipt of USD5m for an initial pre-order of its extended multimission hemispheric radar (exMHR), with a computer-generated image of the radar mounted on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) in a quad configuration, suggesting that the exMHR could be employed for a forthcoming mobile Iron Dome variant (I-Dome).
Accompanying the release, the product page for the exMHR on the company’s website featured the same image, as well as an image of a Rheinmetall-MAN HX-series 6×6 truck fitted as a transporter, erector, launcher, and radar (TELAR) vehicle.
The second image was first seen at Eurosatory 2018 with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems I-Dome TELAR, with 10 Tamir missile launch containers mounted on the launch assembly, arranged in sealed ready-to-launch canisters inserted in a 2×5-cell hydraulically elevated canisterised launcher on the back of the truck. The exMHR was mounted in front, just aft of the cabin in a quad configuration, similar to the JLTV image but in an enclosed, truncated, pyramidical housing.
The radar used by the baseline Iron Dome system is the medium-range variant of the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Elta ELM-2084 multimission radar (MMR), designed for target detection and mid-course guidance of the Tamir interceptors. It was envisaged that a smaller, fixed four-panel variant of the ELM-2084 MMR would be used in the I-Dome.
In videos displayed at the Paris Air Show in 2019, the I-Dome system shows the quad-panel radar assembly in a raised configuration by a hydraulic mast, and rotated 45° in azimuth for radar coverage while operating on the move. However, it is understood that the vehicle would be required to come to a brief halt to conduct launches. (Source: Janes)
07 Dec 21. Poland to break new ground with Osprey on TB2. Poland will trial an AESA radar aboard its new TB2 UAVs as it tries to ramp up its ability to fight a peer adversary in a contested electromagnetic environment. In May 2021, the Polish government announced that it had acquired 24 TB2 MALE UAVs from Turkish manufacturer Bayraktar, with the first delivery scheduled for 2022. Although Poland will become the ninth country publicly to acknowledge procurement of these UAVs, it will be the first to use them in a new configuration. Whereas the field of view of the TB2 is generally provided by EO imaging systems such as the L3Harris Wescam MX-15 or the Aselsan CATS, an unknown number of the UAVs for Poland will also feature the Leonardo Osprey 30 AESA radar on a trial basis. (Source: Shephard)
07 Dec 21. Thales launches the XTRAIM day/night weapon sight, a technological revolution for the armed forces.
- The XTRAIM day/night weapon sight is the ally of choice for the dismounted soldier. The compact, lightweight new product combines a reflex red-dot sight with thermal imaging technology to provide reliable target decamouflage capabilities in daylight and at night.
- XTRAIM offers a precision night-firing capability that was previously unavailable, enhancing the safety of users and helping to ensure the success of their missions.
- The XTRAIM sight was designed at Thales’s centre of excellence for dismounted soldier optronics in Saint-Héand, and is entirely assembled at this site in Eastern France.
Thales has launched XTRAIM, a new weapon sight offering day/night decamouflage capabilities that previously could only be achieved by using several separate pieces of equipment. It is compatible with all shoulder-fired assault rifles (HK416) and light machine guns (Minimi), providing users with an unparalleled precision night-firing capability. XTRAIM was designed in close collaboration with users to guarantee that its ergonomic design and functionalities match their exact operational requirements.
The XTRAIM sight provides a decisive operational advantage in conventional as well as asymmetric combat situations.
The new sight weighs less than about 530 g (including battery) and is at least 70 mm shorter than alternative solutions. It is the dismounted combatant’s perfect ally, reducing the burden on the soldier and improving their agility and endurance.
XTRAIM is a fully integrated sight for daylight operations, combining a reflex red-dot sight with thermal imaging technology to pick out targets from the background (decamouflage function). The high brightness of the reticle in the red-dot sight makes it possible to identify and engage targets even in bright sunlight.
For night-time operations, XTRAIM is compatible with all types of night vision goggles. In this configuration, the infrared images from the weapon sight are superimposed on the images from the light-intensification tubes in the goggles to deliver an unprecedented target decamouflage capability in low-light conditions.
This new weapon sight expands the dismounted soldier’s view of the terrain and enables users to identify adversaries with a high degree of accuracy, improving mission effectiveness and enhancing user safety. The ergonomic design of the XTRAIM sight allows users to shoot with both eyes open, day or night, while remaining fully aware of their surroundings. The range capabilities of the new product are fully consistent with the effective ranges of the dismounted soldier’s weapons.
The XTRAIM sight was designed at Thales’s centre of excellence for dismounted soldier optronics in Saint-Héand, and is entirely assembled at this site in Eastern France. French companies have contributed to the success of this new solution, such as LYNRED as supplier of the infrared sensors.
“The outstanding optical, electronic and mechanical expertise of the teams from Saint-Héand, Thales’s global centre of excellence for soldier optronics, has made it possible to design and develop a solution with our customers, for our customers, that offers the best operational capabilities available today. XTRAIM is nothing short of a revolution for the armed forces.” Christophe Salomon, Executive Vice President, Land and Air Systems, Thales.
06 Dec 21. Key radar for identifying ICBM threats begins initial fielding: MDA. The milestone follows a series of 2020 setbacks due largely to the coronavirus pandemic. The Missile Defense Agency today announced it had finished construction and started initial fielding on a key radar program that, once operational, will play an integral role in protecting the homeland from ballistic missiles.
The Long Range Discrimination Radar, built by Lockheed Martin and pegged at $1.5bn for development and deployment, is stationed at Clear Space Force Station in Alaska and will be turned over to the Air Force after it completes testing.
“The Long Range Discrimination Radar has finished construction, and we can now begin the testing phase that will lead to the full operational use of this vital system,” MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said in a statement. “LRDR will allow Northern Command to better defend the United States from ballistic and hypersonic missile threats.”
The S-band radar’s primary purpose is to distinguish between intercontinental ballistic missiles launched by adversarial nations towards the US and decoys or other innocuous objects moving through space. In addition to protecting the country from a legitimate attack, the capability to differentiate between real threats and decoys helps to preserve the Pentagon’s precious supply of interceptors.
LRDR represents one of the Pentagon’s newest ballistic missile sensors, accompanied by several other ground- and sea-based technologies deployed throughout the world, that all send information back to the GMD Fire Control component in Colorado. The ultimate goal with each new sensor is for the Pentagon to create enough vantage points and string together enough information so that no matter where in the world a missile is launched, its network of sensors will be able to find and track that threat until its neutralized.
“Digital, solid-state, and modular radars are already redefining the emerging radar renaissance. From Patriot to Aegis to GMD, the spectrum of air and missile threats is going to require a new generation of sensors, both radars and other types,” Tom Karako, a senior fellow focused on missile defense at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Breaking Defense.
Speaking to reporters today, Hill said Lockheed Martin just last week conducted a successful test using one of LRDR’s secondary arrays to track several different satellites over a 40-minute period.
The tests were “a great way to take advantage of targets of opportunity – when you have fast moving satellites in space, which means you’re talking extended ranges and moving at incredible speeds,” Hill said.
He added those tracking events occurred two weeks ahead of schedule.
But, the announcement comes despite a handful of setbacks the program suffered last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Parts of Lockheed Martin’s production were delayed to October 2020 from August 2020 when some workers tested positive for COVID-19, according to a Government Accountability Office report published in April. Coronavirus cases also paused work at the military base in Alaska, derailing “progress during the second half of the fiscal year for LRDR” and prompting further negotiations with Lockheed Martin over additional costs, GAO found.
“The increase included the costs to maintain critical staff on site to monitor the radar and equipment during the evacuation period, as well as production impacts, redeployment, and the performance impacts to the overall contract,” according to GAO.
Hill told reporters today the Pentagon has not yet finished negotiations with industry to determine how much money the COVID-19 delays would add to the program or who would foot the bill.
Initial fielding and the first operational flight test were also delayed due to COVID-19, government auditors wrote. As of September 2020, LRDR’s final transition and transfer to the Air Force was scheduled for the third quarter of fiscal 2023, according to GAO. (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
06 Dec 21. Sentient Vision Systems demonstrates ViDAR in live SAR mission, opens Middle East centre of Excellence. In October Melbourne-based Sentient Vision Systems’ new ViDAR VMS-5 pod was instrumental in locating a rubber boat containing 24 immigrants that had been adrift for 48 hours in the English Channel. ViDAR stands for Visual Detection And Ranging; the pod employs Artificial Intelligence to examine every frame in an EO/IR imagery stream to find hard-to-detect targets in bad weather and sea conditions. The VMS-5 pod equipped a Diamond DA42 MPP light aircraft operated in partnership with North Sea Aviation Services (NSAS) which was on a demonstration mission to Belgium’s Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC).
For this demonstration the ViDAR pod had five EO/IR and eight Long-Wave IR sensors with a combined Field of View of 180 degrees. From an altitude of about 1,500ft and at an airspeed of 90kt, if the target is within the sensors’ field of view ViDAR will spot it in the imagery feed in conditions up to Sea State 6 with a 96% probability of detection on the first pass. It enables an airborne search platform to cover a designated area up to 300 times faster than one without ViDAR.
The DA42 was tasked with the mission at extremely short notice because no other air assets were available to the MRCC at the time. But as the aircraft had demonstrated its Search and Rescue (SAR) capability very successfully the day before, the Director of the MRCC allowed the DA42 to be tasked with the mission. The aircraft was airborne within 10 minutes and thanks to the ViDAR VMS-5 pod the missing boat and its 24 occupants were found within 20 minutes.
A few days afterwards, Sentient Vision Systems and its Austrian partner, Airborne Technologies GmbH, team with UK and UAE-based aircraft integration specialist Phoenix Aerospace to create a Middle East Centre of Excellence for sensor integration. This is focussed on introducing the Leonardo AW-139 ViDAR SCAR (Self-Contained Aerial reconnaissance) Pod to the UAE market.
Announced at the 2021 Dubai Air Show, the new Centre of Excellence introduces the ViDAR pod family for a range of civil and military SAR and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) applications.
(Source: Rumour Control)
04 Dec 21. US Air Force Counter UAS Mission in UAE. Specialists with the U.S. Air Force 380th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron provide base defense at Al Dhafra Air Base from threats posed by Unmanned Aerial Systems using a 5-pound radar gun-like device.
“Our mission is to detect and defeat all UAS threats,” explained Master Sgt. Manuel Santiago, counter-UAS noncommissioned officer in charge with the squadron. “We have a variety of sensors and other devices that we monitor for potential threats and, of course, we always count on our Airmen around the Wing to be vigilant and report anything out of the unusual.”
“The C-UAS mission gives us the opportunity to work with a number of agencies around the Wing – comms, EOD, fire, OSS, host nation, and others, including several we don’t often work with on a normal basis,” Gibson said. “Building new relationships not only assists us with C-UAS, but I think it benefits both our defenders and the Wing as a whole. Anytime you are building relationships, you are building a stronger team.”
Santiago said while the C-UAS mission is a relatively new one for Security Forces – the responsibility was first assigned to SFS in 2018 – it is an important one.
“Keeping our Airmen safe and our base and our assets safe, is the focus. C-UAS is a new tool to get that done,” he said.
The new device, known as “Dronebuster,” is a cost-effective tool for security teams and first responders to use during fluid, ambiguous, fast-paced encounters to interrupt the signal between the UAS and its controller.
The system allows the user to efficiently interdict a drone approaching a Forward Operating Base, hovering over a large crowd, snooping into secure/private areas, or flying in restricted airspace. With the Dronebuster, the operator can quickly disrupt the drone command link causing the drone to descend or go home. All the operator needs to do is aim the Dronebuster at the drone and pull the trigger. (Source: UAS VISION/dvids)
06 Dec 21. Spanish police track drone operations at Cuatro Vientos airport with support from Dedrone. Drone detection company Dedrone reports application of itd smart Airspace Security solution by the local Counter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (C-UAV) unit of Benidorm police. The solution is helping to provide aerial coordination of aeroplanes and drones at the Airport of Cuatro Vientos. Benidorm’s C-UAV unit also used Dedrone equipment to mitigate against drone threats at a public even earlier this year. Dedrone worked with partners from System Drone España to provide counter drone solutions that enabled the Benidorm police to detect nearly 300 different drone models and distinguish between friend and foe to provide comprehensive situational awareness. For more information visit: www.dedrone.com (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
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Blighter Surveillance Systems is a world-leading designer and manufacturer of best-in-class electronic-scanning ground-based radars, surveillance solutions and Counter-UAS systems. Blighter’s solid-state micro-Doppler products are deployed in more than 35 countries across the globe, delivering consistent all-weather security protection and wide area surveillance along borders, coastlines, at military bases and across critical infrastructure such as airports, oil and gas facilities and palaces. Blighter radars are also used to protect manoeuvre force missions when deployed on military land vehicles and trailers, and its world-beating multi-mode radar represents a great leap in threat detection technology and affordability for use in a variety of scenarios.
The Blighter range of radar products are used for detecting a variety of threats, from individuals on foot to land vehicles, boats, drones and low-flying aircraft at ranges of up to 32 km. Blighter Surveillance Systems employs 40 people and is located near Cambridge, UK, where it designs, produces and markets its range of unique patented solid-state radars. Blighter prides itself on being an engineer-led business committed to providing cost-effective and flexible solutions across the defence, critical infrastructure and national security markets.
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