Sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems
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08 Nov 18. Iran shows engagement radar for Talash air-defence system. The clearest images to date of the target engagement radar used with the new Talash air-defence system were released during Iran’s ‘Defenders of the Velayat Skies 97’ exercise. The Talash is an Iranian system that uses the Sayyad-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM), which resembles the RIM-66 (SM-1) shipborne SAM that is in service with the Iranian navy. The Iranian military announced in November 2013 that the Sayyad-2 had entered production, saying it has a maximum range of 120 km and a maximum altitude of 27 km.
Although photographs and video footage of Sayyad-2s being launched were subsequently released, its target engagement radar, which is reportedly called the Ofogh, has only been seen in parades with its antenna in a folded position. The images showing the latest exercise showed what appeared to be a complete Talash fire unit with two launchers and an engagement radar that had a circular reflector antenna that resembled – but was not identical to – the AN/SPG-51 that was used with the RIM-66 on many warships, most of which have now been retired. While the Iranian navy acquired SM-1s, it has never operated any ships with the AN/SPG-51 as the US cancelled the delivery of the four Kidd-class destroyers that it ordered after the 1979 Iranian revolution. The surveillance radar seen with the Talash battery was an Iranian vehicle-mounted Kavosh version of the AN/MPQ-50 pulse acquisition radar used with its Mersad derivative of the MIM-23 Hawk SAM system. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
08 Nov 18. Indo Defence 2018: PT Len unveils locally developed air surveillance radar. Key Points:
- Indonesia is showcasing a locally developed air surveillance radar for the first time
- The system is undergoing further validations on an island near the country’s maritime boundary
Indonesia’s state-owned defence electronics company PT Len has unveiled a locally developed solid-state air surveillance radar.
Initial tests of the system were completed on 31 October and the equipment is being showcased to the public for the first time at the Indo Defence 2018 exhibition in Jakarta, a company representative told Jane’s at the event.
“During its initial tests, which were conducted near our office in Bandung, we ran it at a fraction of its power capacity and we managed to detect aerial contacts at ranges of up to 15km,” said a PT Len representative from the company’s Center for Technology and Innovation Division. “Should the system run on its full-power capacity, it will have a range of about 200 km,” he said, adding that full-power trials are scheduled to be conducted on another evaluation unit that has been deployed on Pulau Nipa, a small island that lies close to the maritime border with Singapore.
PT Len’s air surveillance radar operates on the S-band, and features a rotating cosecant squared pattern antenna that can operate at 6, 10, 12, or 20 rotations per minute (rpm). The system incorporates an identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system that can interrogate contacts in Modes 1 to 4 for military aircraft, and Modes A and C for civilian aircraft. Tracking of targets is achieved with monopulse signals and an inbuilt pulse compression feature improves the system’s low probability of interception (LPI) functions. The radar incorporates a constant false alarm rate (CFAR), and moving target indicator (MTI) algorithms to aid in the accuracy of target detection. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
08 Nov 18. Lockheed integrates Telephonics radar on 74K aerostat system. Lockheed Martin’s 74K aerostat system provides persistent surveillance capability for land and sea missions. Credit: © 2018 Lockheed Martin Corporation. Lockheed Martin has successfully fitted its 74K aerostat aircraft system, an unmanned helium-filled blimp, with RDR-1700B radar developed by Telephonics. The lightweight and cost-effective RDR-1700B radar is a search surveillance, tracking, imaging and weather avoidance system suitable for use by both manned and unmanned rotary and fixed-wing aircraft. To be used to conduct land and sea missions, the 74K aerostat system is integrated with a number of multi-mission payloads and high operational availability. The large helium-filled blimp helps support troops in a range of adverse and challenging environments by providing a multi-mission, multi-domain persistent surveillance capability. The current installation follows the company’s successful integration of a number of payloads, including radar sensors from Leonardo and Northrop Grumman, in addition to electro-optic / infra-red cameras provided by L-3 Wescam.
Lockheed Martin navigation, surveillance and unmanned systems vice-president Jerry Mamrol said: “The integration of the Telephonics radar showcases our continued commitment to exploring the latest technologies as part of our aerostat systems.
“It allows for multi-domain, modular and open architecture capabilities for faster, more cost-effective development efforts.”
Also referred to as a persistent threat detection system (PTDS), Lockheed Martin’s 74K aerostat system provides US soldiers with long-range intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications assistance. With more than 1.6 million combat mission flight hours, the aerostat features a robust design, communications relay, as well as command, control, and computer integration, which supports automated interoperability between tactical and theatre surveillance assets. In addition, the air system supports the distribution of operational threat data in order to facilitate the interception of hostile fires and unconventional threats. (Source: army-technology.com)
07 Nov 18. Shine a light. Operations at night require light of various kinds, for which Australian company Trakka Systems (Hall F, Stand F221) has the solution. The TrakkaBeam A800 advanced searchlight makes use of innovative refractive optics, instead of the traditional reflective optics, to provide significant beam strength at half the power of traditional searchlights. It is used in airborne, marine, law enforcement and a range of other applications. A key advantage of the A800 is that any of several filters can be activated at the touch of a button from inside the airborne platform’s cockpit. The filters cover the range from extreme covert infrared to ultraviolet, which is especially useful to reduce the glare from fog, snow or moisture, and to enhance natural colour in the target field. The searchlights and Trakka’s electro-optical cameras can be combined with its innovative mapping system and third-party products to provide a complete critical vision solution.
Easy to install, the design also reduces costly maintenance, with the highest proven mean time between failures (MTBF) in the industry.
According to the company, a significant order from Airbus Helicopters will see the installation of eight A800 searchlights on H225M Caracal helicopters of two unnamed foreign governments for military deployment.
At IndoDefence this week, Trakka Systems is displaying its TLX model, the latest in the high-intensity, high-power searchlights, boasting a 25 per cent increase in light intensity with improved performance and functionality. It offers an optional dual sensor TI/TV co-located camera payload for enhanced day/night situational awareness and mission capabilities. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
08 Nov 18. RelmaTech Demonstrates Innovative Direct Broadcast Solution for UAS Remote ID and Tracking. RelmaTech has designed and developed an innovative solution to meet any future regulatory requirements for UAS to broadcast their position and unique ID without relying on a communications network to carry that data.
RelmaTech’s leading-edge Direct Broadcast solution – a prototype version of which has been demonstrated to key people in the US Federal Aviation Administration UAS Integration Office and NASA UTM Research and Development Program – uses WiFi-based technology to create a unique beacon on the UAS. The light-weight, low cost solution is based on proven, stable and robust technology with high volume availability.
“This is a broadcast mechanism, so no network attachment is required and latency, or broadcast delay, is near zero” says Philip Hall, RelmaTech’s Co-Founder and CEO. “The small onboard device broadcasts a specific set of telemetry data at a high refresh rate. Broadcast signals may be detected by a simple Android/iOS smartphone app or by other compatible direct broadcast modules, making it an ideal solution for local identification and tracking of UAS, especially by law enforcement officers and first responders.”
Any required information, including UAS location and ID, may be displayed via an augmented reality application, or on a moving map of the local area.
“What’s really exciting is that the solution also supports direct Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communications, enabling onboard situational awareness and Detect and Avoid applications” adds Hall. “We are currently working with partners to demonstrate this. That’s not only exciting for us, but also for the UAS industry overall.”
The Direct Broadcast solution will soon be available as a standalone module (DBM), as well as fully integrated into RelmaTech’s existing Secure Integrated Airspace Management (SIAM) system
“With SIAM and the DBM, RelmaTech is now in a unique position to offer the global UAS industry practical, low cost and robust solutions to anticipated regulatory requirements for both network and broadcast UAS remote ID and tracking capabilities,” says Hall. (Source: UAS VISION)
06 Nov 18. ZMicro Launches ZM3 – Industry’s Smallest, Lightest GPU-Capable Mission Computer for Airborne ISR. The ZM3 Mission Computer offers full computing capability in a small, rugged package. This lightweight powerhouse packs in a 16-Core, Intel® Xeon D™ processor, three PCIe expansion slots, up to two removable storage drives and double-wide COTS high-end graphics cards, making it the most compute dense, rugged computing solution on the market. ZMicro, the leader in rugged computing solutions, today announced the new ZM3 Mission Computer (zmicro.com/zm3), the industry’s smallest, lightest, most capable rugged computer with support for the NVIDIA Quadro P6000 GPU. The ZM3 is designed to provide the enterprise-class capabilities of a rack mount server in a fraction of the size and weight, making it ideal for space-constrained applications such as manned and unmanned airborne ISR.
A universal requirement in virtually all rugged military computing applications is Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) optimization. In the case of airborne ISR, where the mission is often driven by the capabilities of the payload, there is a relentless drive for lighter, more compact and ever more capable rugged mission computers.
“Whenever we talk with our customers about what they need in a mission computer, they always tell us to reduce the size, weight and power,” said Jason Wade, President of ZMicro. “We started from scratch and completely re-engineered the mission computer to give our customers what they’ve been asking for: advanced compute processing in the smallest, lightest form-factor possible. The ZM3 Mission Computer is a game-changer.”
In designing the ZM3, ZMicro took advantage of the new COM Express Type 7 specification, a server-on-module specification that is optimized for the demands of embedded edge servers. COM Express Type 7 allows processors such as the Intel® Xeon to be designed into COM Express modules and enables GPUs to be added via carrier boards. It also supports NVMe drives, which increase read/write speeds three to four times compared to SATA 3 and provides 10GbE LAN for rapid communication of video over the network.
ZM3 Mission Computer Features:
- Weighs less than 10 lbs.
- Up to 16 CORE, 1.3GHZ+ INTEL® XEON® processor
- NVIDIA Quadro P6000 GPU (optional)
- Flexible PCI expansion options: Up to 3 PCIe cards
- High-performance, NVMe based storage drives (up to 4TB)
- Designed and tested for DO-160, MIL-STD-461F, and MIL-STD-810G
The ZM3 Mission Computer is unique because it is the smallest, lightest, most cost-effective rugged mission computer available that can support an NVIDIA GPU card. With versatile mounting options and a convenient shape, the ZM3 enables system designers to utilize available space in a vastly more efficient manner, opening up new possibilities for configurations with greater processing capability or lighter, more compact loads. (Source: BUSINESS WIRE)
06 Nov 18. U.S. Scraps Boeing Upgrade of Surveillance Plane’s Radar. The Air Force terminated a Boeing Co. contract to update the radar on its flagship Awacs surveillance aircraft after the company encountered major delays in developing hardware and software, according to budget documents. Instead of continuing the $76m contract with Boeing, “the Air Force determined the best approach for providing this critical capability would be to replace the legacy radar processor and its related components,” Captain Hope Cronin, a service spokeswoman, said in an email. “Several companies responded to the Air Force’s request for information, and a request for proposal is currently being developed.”
Boeing was on contract to provide improved radar processing “in a specific flight environment to meet a classified requirement,” for its E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System surveillance aircraft, Cronin said. The modified 707-320 commercial planes are recognized by their saucer-shaped, rotating radar domes that can spot and classify aircraft as far as 250 miles (402 kilometers) away.
The Air Force’s Life Cycle Management Center, which manages the development of weapons systems, issued a partial stop-work order in January and terminated the contract in May. The termination had not been previously disclosed.
“Boeing estimated several additional years and an additional $60m would be needed to complete the project,” Cronin said.
Kelly Kaplan, a spokeswoman for Chicago-based Boeing, said in an email that the company and the Air Force “have been partnered since the first days of the Awacs program. We’re committed to supporting a robust Awacs fleet capability for many years to come.” (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Bloomberg)
06 Nov 18. Don’t dumb down this US Army radar. Abandoning 360-degree coverage would make air defenses more vulnerable and undermine their mission. Press reports and statements from U.S. Army leadership suggest that omnidirectional capability for the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, may be slipping away as the threshold requirement it deserves to be. Air defenders and joint forces under their protection should hope this doesn’t happen. While unveiling the Army’s six modernization priorities last year, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley declared: “None of this is going to matter if you’re dead. And that’s why you need air defense.” But without omnidirectional sensing, U.S. air defenses and their defended assets may also end up dead, suppressed by enemy threats they cannot see. And that’s why air defenders need 360-degree sensor coverage.
Omnidirectional threats
During the post-Cold War holiday from history, air superiority was taken for granted as a birthright. The corresponding neglect of air defense has now caught up with us. The joint force now faces a more complex and contested aerial-threat environment than ever before.
LTAMDS is intended to replace the 120-degree Patriot radars designed decades ago. The Q-53 and Q-65 radars have improved, but threats have frankly outpaced them.
Past air and missile defenses focused on threats with more predictable trajectories. Today’s threat spectrum is far more diverse. Even a poor man’s air force today may have drones and cruise missiles that fly around sectored sensors to kill them in their blind spots. Maneuvering ballistic missiles, radiation-seeking missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles pose further challenges. Sensors for the modern battlefield must also be capable against non-kinetic attack, like electronic spoofing and jamming.
Of particular concern is the prospect that U.S. air defenses could be suppressed by complex, integrated attacks. Last summer, North Korea used a UAV to surveil the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense ballistic missile defense battery in South Korea. Had it instead attacked the TPY-2 radar, it could have incapacitated THAAD on the Korean Peninsula. Yemen’s Houthis openly brag about using drones to target Saudi Patriot radars. In Syria and Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated the lethal effect of integrating electronic attack, drones, artillery and short-range ballistic missiles.
25 years and counting
Concrete manifestations of the Army’s seriousness about the current strategic environment include the conceptual development of multidomain operations, the creation of a cross-functional team for air and missile defense, the reconstitution of maneuver short-range air defense, and the establishment of Army Futures Command.
Much history precedes these recent efforts for the Army Air Defense Artillery branch. A quarter-century ago, the Army planned a 360-degree radar for what was then called Corps SAM. That program later became the multinational Medium Extended Air Defense System, or MEADS, which the United States exited in 2012.
Although advancing LTAMDS is a long-awaited, welcome development, it would be unfortunate if accelerated fielding comes at too steep a capability cost. Yet, references to 360-degree capability are conspicuously absent from a recent announcement for an LTAMDS “sense-off” event next year.
In last year’s defense authorization bill, Congress warned that if the Army couldn’t deploy a multi-threat, 360-degree sensor by 2023, then LTAMDS and its budget would be taken away and given to the Missile Defense Agency.
Integration necessary but insufficient
One justification for deprioritizing the LTAMDS 360-degree requirement is that gaps will be filled by stitching together sectored radars or by tethering to other unspecified assets.
To be sure, network centrism represents the future of integrated air and missile defense. The Army has prudently advanced the “any sensor, best shooter” vision, integrated fire control via the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, and other near-term interoperability improvements.
Caution is nevertheless in order. Integration is no substitute for a fire unit fighting effectively on its own. Data from supporting sensors may not always be available due to competing missions, battery dispersal or network degradation. The Army’s last air and missile defense strategy touted the need for 360-degree sensors in the same paragraphs presupposing networked integration.
Building a ring of sectored radars is possible, but reduces the defended area. Circling the radar wagons also invites sudden rather than graceful degradation. Once the enemy punches a hole in the defense by eliminating one wagon, strike assets would follow, killing the other sensors from their blind spots.
Assuming lots of extra sensors lying around is also in tension with the primacy of maneuver. Expeditionary forces must be able to execute their mission without austere or little augmentation. Patriot batteries on the move won’t have the luxury of borrowing radars from other branches to lug around.
Retaining 360-degree coverage at the element or battery level, by contrast, supports both resilience and flexibility by allowing commanders to send self-sufficient, untethered batteries wherever needed.
Multifunctional considerations
The functions that air defense radars must perform further underscore the importance of unadulterated 360-degree coverage. A radar must find, fix and track threats, and then support fire control engagement — guiding interceptors to target. Sentinel radars are proven to serve surveillance and tracking functions for air breathers, but are not built for Patriot fire control, nor for ballistic missiles.
It’s not easy to do all these functions in every direction simultaneously. MEADS was initially designed to have one continually spinning surveillance sensor and another, higher-frequency radar that could stare for tracking and fire control. Several years ago, the Army chose to consolidate these functions onto one platform, rather than two.
Increased expectations from a single platform may have lead to increased cost and prompted the consideration of LTAMDS designs relatively less capable against salvo attacks.
When a single rotating radar stops spinning for fire control with one engagement, its ability to track others in a complex raid might be diminished. Conversely, a stationary, staring radar with one primary face and two smaller faces would favor a particular sector.
The Army’s upcoming sense-off test provides an opportunity to aggressively pit sensor entrants against diverse and integrated salvo attacks. Based on the results, it may make sense to re-evaluate both the consolidation decision and other requirements, even if it means combining several companies’ wares into a “best of breed” solution.
The sense-off should be a catalyst for minimizing sensor gaps and seams, not a justification for widening them. The characteristics of LTAMDS will likely persist a long time, both for U.S. air defenders and likely for international partners, including the 14 other countries operating Patriot.
And if in the end, near-term priorities do force the delay of omnidirectional coverage, an alternative threshold requirement should be to build in ample margin for subsequent upgrades to accommodate an objective requirement of true 360-degree, multi-threat coverage.
The stakes
But failing to provide robust sensor coverage would fail to honor the threat.
The Air Defense Artillery branch’s motto is “First to Fire.” In a conflict like those envisioned in multidomain operations, they would also likely be the first to be fired upon.
At stake is survivability in a challenging aerial-threat environment. Sacrificing 360-degree coverage for LTAMDS could be a grave mistake. Army leadership shouldn’t make it easier for the enemy to suppress Army air defenders by lowering sensor requirements (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Bloomberg)
06 Nov 18. UUV Aquabotix Ltd (ASX:UUV) (“Aquabotix” or the “Company”) today announces that it has been granted a United States Patent for its Remotely Operated Vehicle Camera Apparatus. Many underwater vehicles operate with a single stationary camera, an interior-based moveable camera, or multiple cameras. Each of these configurations may have significant drawbacks and ultimately limit their functionality and usefulness. For example, a forward-facing camera can be used for navigation but is limited if the operator would like to record information around the vehicle in a reconnaissance mission. To address this challenge, Aquabotix developed a fully rotatable camera apparatus for attachment to its own or other vehicles. The camera apparatus can be mounted to the side of a vehicle and configured to rotate, enabling an operator to have a completely unobstructed 360-degree view in an underwater environment. This connector can also be used for mounting rotatable underwater light sources.
05 Nov 18. Developing open architecture and standards-based modular systems will create future growth opportunities, finds Frost & Sullivan. Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, US DoD UAS Market, Forecast to 2023, reveals that the importance of military unmanned aerial systems (UAS) continues to increase as combatant commanders grow accustomed to receiving 24/7 battlefield surveillance and will demand more as adversaries embrace innovative equipment and technologies. The United States (US) Department of Defense (DoD) is focusing on investing in small tactical UAS as these systems offer a wide range of capabilities while reducing logistic footprints and operational manpower. US DoD UAS funding is expected to easily exceed $6bn during the forecast period.
“Growth opportunities exist in developing and adopting advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms that enable swarming, autonomous flight and automated data processing and exploitation. Disruptive innovations including autonomous drones, transitional drones, and manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) capabilities will also drive growth in the market,” said Michael Blades, Research Director, Defense at Frost & Sullivan.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have accelerated and will continue with large and medium-sized firms looking to gain advanced capabilities through investment rather than internal research and development (R&D). The focus though, is likely to shift to strategic partnerships where smaller, innovative companies will retain the ability to operate with the flexibility and tempo that makes them competitive in an environment where technological change is rapidly occurring.
Three strategic imperatives for players to succeed and grow in an evolving market include:
- Developing sophisticated software and hardware that enable autonomous operations
- Focusing on achieving interoperability across domains and with existing manned and unmanned systems
- Offering UAS as a service where platforms are rapidly deployable and have modular capabilities to allow for quick upgrades
“Despite significant opportunities, US budget and political uncertainties could adversely affect the DoD’s planning strategies,” noted Blades. “UAS market competitors must be aware of potential changes to trade agreements and foreign sales rules and have contingency plans for if/when they are implemented.”
US DoD UAS Market, Forecast to 2023 provides a macro view of planned funding, recent spending, and future trends expected in the DoD UAS market. Funding and contract information for segments such as HALE, MALE, Tactical, SUAS, and MUAS are provided, with target segments such as tethered aerostats and UAS, UAS sensors/subsystems, and UAS support UGCS analyzed. US DoD UAS Market, Forecast to 2023 is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan’s Defense research and analysis available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities.
31 Oct 18. UTC Aerospace Systems Develops World’s Highest Resolution SWIR Camera for Office of Naval Research. New sensor boasts nearly 16 times the resolution of company’s current offering and will provide operators with an improved ISR situational awareness capability Under a contract with the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR), UTC Aerospace Systems’ Sensors Unlimited business has developed the world’s highest resolution indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) Near Infrared/Shortwave Infrared (NIR/SWIR) imaging sensor. The new sensor includes a 16 megapixel photo-detector array on a 5 micron pitch, providing roughly 16 times more detail than the company’s existing high definition sensor, released in 2012, which has a resolution of 1.3 megapixels. UTC Aerospace Systems is a unit of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX).
The first-of-its-kind sensor is hybridized to a matching silicon CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) read-out integrated circuit and packaged into a hermetically sealed focal plane array. Imaging electronics were also designed and developed to integrate the focal plane array into a complete imaging camera.
Per ONR’s requirement, the sensor is compatible with the RQ-21A payload SWAP (Size, Weight and Power) envelope and offers the following capabilities:
- High coverage rate spectral sensing in the SWIR band
- Ability to continuously monitor a wide area activity at a resolution (temporal and spatial) consistent with dismount detection/tracking
- High fidelity inspection sensing in both of the above collection modes
- Autonomous identification of objects, behaviors and materials of interest with accuracy rates high enough to enable a useful real-time dissemination of information directly to warfighters
UTC Aerospace Systems developed the sensor for the U.S. Navy’s Spectral and Reconnaissance Imagery for Tactical Exploitation (SPRITE) program and has delivered four prototypes to the service as part of a 3-year, $9.7mi award.
“Our newest SWIR camera uses groundbreaking technology to provide operators with a higher resolution and greater level of detail than ever before,” said Michael Daugherty, Program Manager, UTC Aerospace Systems. “For the warfighter, this means an improved ISR situational awareness capability. We’re honored to support the U.S. Navy and look forward to continuing to support the SPRITE program in the years ahead.” (Source: ASD Network)
05 Nov 18. US Department of Defense spending on counter-UAS technology reaches US$1.5bn in 2018. US Department of Defense (DoD) spending on C-UAS systems has reached US$1.5bn this year (January-November) according to a new study by www.UnmannedAirspace.info, market analysts of counter-UAS and UAS traffic management (UTM) sectors. “This is a huge rise on the US$200m spent by the DoD in the previous 18 months,” says Philip Butterworth-Hayes, a consultant who has compiled the study. “While up to US$942m of this expenditure has been dedicated to a single contract – the US Navy requirement for two high power laser weapons – this still represents a threefold increase on purchasing C-UAS equipment in 2018 over 2017. And the year is not yet over.” The figures are part of a market survey of C-UAS companies and products carried out by Unmanned Airspace at the end of October 2018. The Directory of C-UAS Companies (https://www.unmannedairspace.info/counter-uas-industry-directory/) now lists 170 companies and 243 products. While the USA has been by far the largest customer for C-UAS products from suppliers around the world Russia is now the second largest market. The country has embarked on a number of nationwide C-UAS acquisition programmes to protect cities and airports from drone attacks and these have generated, along with the conflict in Syria, a major increase in the number and capability of Russian C-UAS systems. Mass production of the Pishal range of anti-drone guns will start in 2019, according to Russian press agency reports, and will be supplied to Russian law enforcement and military units throughout the country.
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Blighter® Surveillance Systems (BSS) is a UK-based electronic-scanning radar and sensor solution provider delivering an integrated multi-sensor package to systems integrators comprising the Blighter electronic-scanning radars, cameras, thermal imagers, trackers and software solutions. Blighter radars combine patented solid-state Passive Electronic Scanning Array (PESA) technology with advanced Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) and Doppler processing to provide a robust and persistent surveillance capability. Blighter Surveillance Systems is a Plextek Group company, a leading British design house and technology innovator, and is based at Great Chesterford on the outskirts of Cambridge, England.
The Blighter electronic-scanning (e-scan) FMCW Doppler ground surveillance radar (GSR) is a unique patented product that provides robust intruder detection capabilities under the most difficult terrain and weather conditions. With no mechanical moving parts and 100% solid-state design, the Blighter radar family of products are extremely reliable and robust and require no routine maintenance for five years. The Blighter radar can operate over land and water rapidly searching for intruders as small a crawling person, kayaks and even low-flying objects. In its long-range modes the Blighter radar can rapidly scan an area in excess of 3,000 km² to ensure that intruders are detected, identified and intercepted before they reach critical areas.
05 Nov 18. US Department of Defense spending on counter-UAS technology reaches US$1.5bn in 2018. US Department of Defense (DoD) spending on C-UAS systems has reached US$1.5bn this year (January-November) according to a new study by www.UnmannedAirspace.info, market analysts of counter-UAS and UAS traffic management (UTM) sectors. “This is a huge rise on the US$200m spent by the DoD in the previous 18 months,” says Philip Butterworth-Hayes, a consultant who has compiled the study. “While up to US$942m of this expenditure has been dedicated to a single contract – the US Navy requirement for two high power laser weapons – this still represents a threefold increase on purchasing C-UAS equipment in 2018 over 2017. And the year is not yet over.” The figures are part of a market survey of C-UAS companies and products carried out by Unmanned Airspace at the end of October 2018. The Directory of C-UAS Companies (https://www.unmannedairspace.info/counter-uas-industry-directory/) now lists 170 companies and 243 products. While the USA has been by far the largest customer for C-UAS products from suppliers around the world Russia is now the second largest market. The country has embarked on a number of nationwide C-UAS acquisition programmes to protect cities and airports from drone attacks and these have generated, along with the conflict in Syria, a major increase in the number and capability of Russian C-UAS systems. Mass production of the Pishal range of anti-drone guns will start in 2019, according to Russian press agency reports, and will be supplied to Russian law enforcement and military units throughout the country.
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