UAVS OVER THE MARITIME HORIZON

Maritime patrolling with UAVs has becoming the norm, allowing manned missions to be dedicated to more labour intensive tasks.

- JR Ng

Airborne maritime domain operations such as anti-submarine warfare (ASW), intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and patrol missions have typically been the province of multi-engine aircraft specifically designed for extended overwater operations or commercial platforms modified for such operations.

However, the means of acquiring and maintaining adequate fleets of such manned platforms remain beyond what some Asia Pacific countries – including maritime states with large economic exclusive zones (EEZs) and contiguous waters to secure – can field by their respective air and naval forces and maritime security agencies.

As a result, there is a growing requirement for affordable alternatives to conventional ISR and maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) which the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry hopes to address with medium- and high-altitude, long-endurance (MALE and HALE) platforms with their long-range and loiter capabilities as well as their inherent to carry multiple sensor payloads simultaneously.

At the other end of the spectrum are smaller fixed-wing and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAVs, which are also gaining favour as shipborne ISR assets that can be readily deployed to extend a surface vessel’s detection range.

MALE UAVs

Israel’s Elbit Systems has developed a maritime patrol mission suite for its Hermes 900 UAV, which can comprise a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) such as Leonardo’s Gabianno T200 X-band radar, a stabilised electro-optical/infrared (EO/ IR) turret and electronic surveillance systems.