Sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems
www.blighter.com
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16 Apr 19. Loudhailer Support in RadarWatch. As part of a new customer project, support for LRAD loudhailers has been added into RadarWatch. LRAD’s loudhailer systems can be steered to point at a given direction and produce intelligible audio out to 3,000 metres range. Loudhailers provide a means of communicating, warning of danger, deterring intruders or even repelling wildlife. These loudhailer systems include an integrated camera and may also be fitted with a searchlight, providing a very effective security capability to RadarWatch users.
RadarWatch supports input to the loudhailer from pre-recorded audio file or live audio from a microphone (push-to-talk). RadarWatch now also supports the use of user-defined audio files for its alarm notifications. RadarWatch is a full-featured, flexible client display application for receipt and display of radar and associated data. RadarWatch has been designed with coastal surveillance and VTS for small ports/harbours in mind, providing capabilities such as electronic chart display and a flexible alarm logic.
RadarWatch is a ready-made application capable of displaying radar video, tracks, AIS, ADS-B and camera video, within multiple windows and across multiple screens. RadarWatch takes all of its inputs from network sources and supports a number of standard data formats, making it ideal for use in distributed architectures.
15 Apr 19. Egyptian special forces will soon get a wearable heads up display. Egypt’s special operations forces will soon be on the receiving end of the Egyptian Integrated Soldier System — a helmet and weapon-mounted battlefield electronics system designed to bring Egyptian asymmetric warfare units closer to parity with their western counterparts. Egypt’s move comes at the same time as Russia’s pursuit of a next-generation battle suit, known as Ratnik.
While Ratnik places a heavy emphasis on broadly evolving the capabilities and survivability of the average Russian infantryman, EISS only aims to make special operations soldiers more electronically integrated with their teams.
The French military has already implemented something similar to EISS back in 2010, known as FELIN.
Developed by Safran Electronics & Defense, FELIN turns each individual soldier into a platform from which data can be gathered and disseminated on the battlefield via a central processing “nerve center”.
Optical sensors, imaging devices, an advanced communications suite, and helmet display which can feed the wearer imagery from various cameras and sensors.
Compared to FELIN, EISS is a no-frills project that focuses entirely on generating and sharing critical pictures and videos between unit commanders and subordinates than it does enhance the user’s communications systems as well as his protective gear.
EISS’s roll-out will consist of two basic configurations — the commander and the soldier system. The soldier system uses a helmet-mounted eyepiece to bring up images from other electro-optical sensors plugged into helmets, assault rifles, machine guns, and the daylight scopes of RPG-7 launchers.
Commander systems feature all of the above, plus a thermal sight.
The system’s power comes from a rechargeable battery pack which is worn on the end user’s belt, with the controls present on the power device.
Currently, it’s unclear just how many Egyptian units will receive the final EISS product. The Egyptian Army maintains 8 special forces regiments, known as “Sa’ka Forces” (translated to Thunderbolt Forces), comprised of 24 battalions.
It’s possible that the initial fielding will be limited some of the country’s more secretive high speed outfits, such as Units 777 and 999, which function in a similar role to the British SAS or the US Army’s Delta Force.
As development and production costs decrease, regimental Sa’ka commandos will eventually find themselves equipped with the new helmet mounted displays.
With the Egypt historically maintaining a good relationship with Russia in terms of importing military hardware, it’s also possible that EISS might remain a utility available only to special operations units while the country pursues buying an export version of Ratnik for its conventional forces. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Military Times)
16 Apr 19. Parrot Launches Thermal Ultra-Compact Lightweight Drone Solution. Parrot has announced ANAFI Thermal: the all-in-one, drone-based solution that provides easy to use, sophisticated and high-quality thermography (drone + sensor + software), with proven reliability and outstanding performance.
Parrot has evolved its existing ANAFI platform to create this lightweight and easy-to-use solution specifically engineered to support a wide range of industries. As well as the built-in 4K HDR camera, ANAFI Thermal integrates a FLIR thermal sensor – a benchmark product in this sector – capable of letting users see thermal imaging quickly and efficiently.
With ANAFI Thermal, users can view live thermal and RGB images (4K HDR) of surfaces, structures or at-risk areas that the drone captures while in flight, creating the opportunity to better understand areas monitored and take immediate action.
Users of ANAFI Thermal can collect previously inaccessible information and data at a fraction of the cost, while increasing efficiency and productivity in a secure way.
With this unrivalled solution, Parrot is reinforcing its commitment to the professional drone market to revolutionise the way many industries and trades operate. The ANAFI Thermal offers a wide range of industries an all-in-one solution that can be adapted to different requirements and needs. ANAFI Thermal will provide a solution to:
- Building, construction, public works and real estate professionals
- Experts in civil security and rescue services
- Energy producers and transporters
- Environment and preservation organisations
ANAFI Thermal: two high-precision cameras – thermal and RGB 4K
Parrot’s Paris-based engineers have evolved the existing ANAFI platform to create ANAFI Thermal. With exceptional features and performance, the drone embeds sophisticated software developed after thousands of hours of rigorous testing, research and development.
ANAFI Thermal’s gimbal embeds two built-in miniature cameras (thermal and RGB 4K) stabilised on three axes for sharp videos and clear pictures whatever the flight conditions:
- A FLIR radiometric thermal-imaging camera (resolution 160×120 / temperature range -10° to +400°C). It reveals the invisible and takes live temperature readings. Directly from the FreeFlight 6 app, the pilot can instantly identify areas of heat loss, in both hot and cold spots, and isolate subjects from their surroundings.
- A 4K HDR camera with 21MP Sony sensor, essential for the visual inspection of a surface or building. It provides precise photo and video footage, crucial when capturing images of search areas, for example. Extend the capabilities of ANAFI Thermal to build 3D images of building and carry out 3D inspections after the flight and take dimensions with the Pix4DModel app.
Images of the visible and the invisible can be combined directly by the FreeFlight 6 app. Each element of the environment then appears in high precision with the representation of thermal leaks or temperature differences superimposed.
A unique feature for drones of this category, ANAFI Thermal’s gimbal vertically tilts to +/-90°. This makes it possible to inspect beneath structures in Zenith View or roofs and flat surfaces in Nadir View. Thanks to the x3 digital zoom, the pilot can examine results in 4K mode or with thermal imaging, hard-to-reach elements or the details of a scene, without taking any risks. (Source: UAS VISION)
16 Apr 19. HENSOLDT, the leading independent sensor solutions house, will deliver its IFF interrogator (IFF = Identification-friend-or-foe) for very short range and short range air defence applications to the French Ministry for the Armed Forces. The contract awarded to Hensoldt France SAS covers the delivery of 134 MSR1000I (monopulse secondary radar) destined for integration on the French Army’s MISTRAL missile launchers and MARTHA air defence command and control stations. The MSR1000I IFF interrogator has been successfully qualified by the French Defence Procurement Agency DGA in December 2018 and will perform NATO IFF interrogation together with the mini crypto-computer QRTK6NG, also manufactured by Hensoldt France. Following this, the first tranche has been notified and 41 MSR1000I compliant with the STANAG 4193 Edition 3 will be delivered in 2020.
The French very short range and short range air defence platforms will then be able to perform mode 4 and mode 5 interrogations. IFF systems precisely identify ships and aircraft by automatically sending interrogation signals which are answered by so-called transponders on-board friendly aircraft or ships. Thus, IFF enables field commanders to quickly distinguish friendly from hostile forces. Unlike Mode 4 used hitherto, Mode 5 employs sophisticated encryption techniques to avoid hostile signal manipulation, thus ensuring that the identification process is absolutely reliable and secure. With the decommissioning of Mode 4, “Mode 5” needs to be introduced in all western armies, then being a precondition of joint operations of NATO and allied forces.
15 Apr 19. Pentagon confirms deployment of new passive sensor. The Pentagon has confirmed the deployment of prototype passive sensor systems for long-range surveillance against fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), and cruise missile (CM) threats.
The US Army has fielded the Army Long-Range Persistent Surveillance (ALPS) passive sensor to the US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), US European Command (USEUCOM), and US Central Command (USCENTCOM) in support of a Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement (JUONS), Lieutenant General James Dickinson, head of Army Space and Missile Defence Command/Army Forces Strategic Command said on 3 April at a Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee hearing.
“The army demonstrated the ability to integrate ALPS into the Army IBCS [Integrated Air and Missile Defence Battle Command System] in 2018,” Lt Gen Dickinson said. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
15 Apr 19. Saab delivers radar equipment to Pakistan Air Force. Defence and security company Saab delivered three sets of radar equipment to Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Base Nur Khan (Chaklala) on 9 April, according to the information provided by the Pakistan Import Export Trade Database.
Although not specified by the website, it is possible that the Swedish company delivered three Erieye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) radar systems for fitment onto an equal number of twin-engined Saab 2000 aircraft that were handed over to Pakistan’s Directorate General Defence Purchase in 2018, according to aircraft sales specialist Skyworld Aviation. In a 26 June statement Skyworld Aviation announced that the aircraft had previously been in operation with Sweden-based BRA Braathens Regional Airlines. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
13 Apr 19. Can sea creatures see enemy submarines from the sea floor? The ocean is already teeming with sensors, and has been for over half-a-billion years. Those sensors are cost-efficient, fully autonomous, and rapidly process the information around them into actionable intelligence. Harnessing this existing realm of sensors means converting the organs that let sea creatures live into an early warning system for things like submarine intrusion. It’s an audacious goal, and a task the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has set to solve: Can the creatures of the sea become an sensor platform?
Under the friendly acronym PALS, for Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors, DARPA wants to “tap into marine organisms’ innate abilities to sense and respond to perturbations in their environments” and then use those sense to detecting, characterizing, and reporting on human-made objects traveling underwater, from uncrewed submersibles to nuclear submarines.
Fortunately for the undersea PALS enlisted into submarine detection, it looks like the program envisions a largely passive use of animal sensing capabilities. That is, rather than some gothic horror of fish bound together in a human-made cage feeding signals through wires into a control unit, the animals will be left free to roam. Instead, the human-controlled sensor will simply observe animals as they are, and note the differences in animal behavior between when a submarine is nearby, and when one isn’t.
On April 11, DARPA selected Northrop Grumman to prototype those sensing capabilities. To that end, Northrop Grumman says it will “develop biological sensing hardware that has increased sensitivity for certain sensor modalities, achieving greater range.” Then, using artificial intelligence, this hardware will observe patterns in the marine environment. With luck and iteration, it might be able to tell the difference between a school of fish fleeing a seal and a school of fish fleeing an underwater robot.
Ultimately, any sensor system built from PALS will have to distinguish between sea creature reaction to human-created vehicles and a range of false positives, from debris or other sea creatures. Should it work, it would open up and undermine whole fields of biomimicry. If fish really do scatter differently for robots and manta rays, that could erode any stealth gained from robots shaped like manta rays. Conversely, if there’s a way for submarine movements to be disguised as, say, the movement patterns of sharks or the drifting of debris, then the new PALS sensors could be cleverly fooled.
Should any of this work, the immediate advantage for the first military that could tap into the natural sensing going on throughout the ocean is almost unfathomable. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
15 Apr 19. Lockheed Martin’s (NYSE: LMT) Pilotage Distributed Aperture Sensor (PDAS) system took flight for the first time aboard the V-280 Valor, Bell Helicopter’s next-generation tiltrotor aircraft in a series of flights over Fort Worth, Texas, in March. PDAS is a multi-functional sensor system that generates high-resolution, 360-degree imagery around the aircraft to enhance situational awareness for pilots and other users. The PDAS system captured complete spherical infrared imagery while operating in a high-speed, tactically relevant flight environment and generated real-time imagery.
“Conducting PDAS flight tests on the V-280 is an exciting first step toward delivering a level of situational awareness unavailable on today’s Army rotorcraft,” said Rita Flaherty, strategy & business development vice president at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “With its embedded, multi-functional sensors, PDAS is the ideal foundation for an integrated survivability suite that will enable Army aircrews to own any environment and universally detect and defeat incoming threats.”
Specifically designed for current and future vertical lift aircraft, PDAS consists of six infrared sensors distributed around the aircraft linked to aircrew helmets and cockpit displays via an open-architecture processor. During testing, engineers demonstrated PDAS’s ability to provide simultaneous coverage to multiple independent displays. Aircrews benefit from its all-weather pilotage imagery while transported ground troops can survey the environment for tactical information and threats. While PDAS is currently generating imagery for two users, the system will ultimately support up to six users, which could include pilots in other aircraft and mission commanders on the ground.
Planned capability upgrades will demonstrate additional integrated survivability suite capabilities like Multi-Modal Sensor Fusion (MMSF). MMSF blends data from multiple types of sensors to restore aircrew situational awareness in degraded visual environments and enables navigation in GPS-denied zones.
15 Apr 19. RUAG STC for H125s. RUAG has designed, developed and integrated a supplemental type certificate (STC) that features night vision imaging systems (NVIS) for the Airbus H125 helicopter, the company announced on 11 April. The STC, approved by the European Aviation Safety Agency, integrates the customised avionics package, NVIS and cockpit upgrade STC for two new H125s belonging to the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation and Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board. The advanced avionics package ensures clear and precise situational awareness. The STC focuses on reducing cockpit workload, extending mission adaptability and enhancing aircraft versatility.
RUAG has also integrated fifteen different modification packages to the H125 helicopters. Tactical direction finders, interfaced to an advanced digital map computer, provide a complete mission system to improve tracking during SAR operations. (Source: Shephard)
15 Apr 19. Semi Conductor Devices (SDC) – a global leader in the development and manufacture of a wide range of cooled and uncooled infrared detectors and high-power laser diodes announced the successful launch to space and operation of its Cardinal InGaAs SWIR (Short Wave Infrared) detector. The detector was integrated into a hyperspectral imager installed in the Hello World Nano satellite. The hyperspectral imager was developed by Finland based VTT Ltd. (www.vtt.fi) and the Nano satellite by Reaktor Space Lab Ltd. (https://reaktorspace.com/reaktor-hello-world/).
The imager provides infrared images that aid in providing solutions for monitoring and managing the effects of climate change and assist in predictions of natural disasters like forest fires. The images from space received by the VTT imager are of excellent quality which is also the result of the high performance of the SCD InGaAs SWIR detector. This event adds to the growing list of space customers who are using SCD detectors and products of various types and technologies.
According to Dan Slasky, SCD’s CEO : “SCD is proud to be part of VTT’s nano satellite program with our Cardinal SWIR detector. The SCD SWIR product line has shown significant growth and the prospects forward show even more demand for the high performance, yet cost effective sensors. To date, the SCD Cardinal family of SWIR detectors have been implemented into Land, Naval and Airborne applications and now we can also add Space applications to our portfolio.”
12 Apr 19. Ukrainian 1L220UK counter-battery radar completes field tests. The Ukrainian armed forces have completed field tests of a new version of the domestically produced 1L220UK counter-battery artillery reconnaissance system, the country’s state concern Ukroboronprom announced on 8 April. The counter-battery radar was designed by the Zaporizhia-based Iskra research centre.
“Based on the test protocols, signed by members of the public commission, an act of state tests will be drawn up in which, according to available information, it will be recommended that the 1L220UK radar enters service with the armed forces of Ukraine,” the company said in a press release.
The mobile weapon locating system is designed to detect and track the point of origin of incoming artillery shells and rockets to direct counter-battery fire. The system uses its radar to track the trajectory of a shell or rocket and calculates its point of origin and impact.
According to the company, the radar’s digital active phased-array antenna allows operators to deploy the counter-battery radar dozens of kilometres from enemy positions, observing them in a 180° field of view. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
12 Apr 19. Photonis Technologies and SYT Technologies announced a business partnership during the SOFINS exhibition in Bordeaux last week. The two companies are combining their skills and products to enable the SYT SR750 long range observation system to detect, recognize and identify both during day and night. During SOFINS Photonis and SYT Technologies showcased their joint project for the first time to the military audience. SYT Technologies is the manufacturer of the SR750 portable system. With its versatility of use, the SR750 is particularly adapted to the needs of mobile and special units for rapid interventions in urban areas. The SR750 is lightweight, has a powerful zoom up to 33 times and it integrates a Photonis high performance day and low light Nocturn CMOS camera in colour or monochrome able to reach night level 3. The Nocturn camera is already in use in several major defence programs. It features high resolution, high sensitivity and high dynamic range with low power consumption. The camera provides colour or monochrome real-time imaging capabilities in the visible and near infrared spectrum. Combining the SR750 portable system and the Nocturn camera creates a unique long range observation solution that ensures great images under any circumstances up to 20km.
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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.
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