The US Sea Guardian drone maker will be upgrading the radar of the UAV with improved radar. The addition of the AESA US Sea Guardian Drone will improve its recon abilities.
US Sea Guardian Drone Integrates Seaspray AESA Maritime Radar
One of the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems variants of the Reaper drone is the MQ-9B SeaGuardian that offers more recons.
Demand for more upgrade for recon drone General Atomics has a deal with Leonardo to add their Leonardo Seaspray 7500E V2 radar and install it in the radar pod assembly. This update of the MQ-9B maritime drone offered to naval forces reported Naval News.
One of the primary uses for the naval-use drone is that it gives military forces using systems to monitor sea lanes. Fulfilling the Maritime ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) mission without using man aircraft. These UAVs stay in the air longer to overlook and monitor activity.
What makes the MQ-9B maritime variant capable
These long-endurance drone systems offer many abilities that make them an excellent alternative to manned airplanes. These UAVs can operate in all weather conditions and comply with STANAG-4671, the NATO standard for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Equipped with several top-notch systems for UAVS, it has operationally proven collision-avoidance radar that keeps the UAV from colliding with civilian aircraft in general airspace.
One of the systems installed is a multi-mode maritime surface search radar with several ways to detect objects. For imaging, an Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) allows more precision in acquiring images.
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Next are an Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver and a High-Definition - Full-Motion Video sensor equipped with optical and infrared cameras that is a suite of systems to get surveillance pictures or video. A critical part of the surveillance drones is to capture images and video for information.
One more addition to the systems is automatic track correlation and anomaly-detection algorithms that allow detection and recognition of ships in thousands of square nautical miles. In areas like the Indo-Pacific and other seas, this will be an excellent acquisition to monitor large areas.
Seaspray 7500E V2 radar
The US Sea Guardian Drone is primarily used for its SeaGuardian mission set. An advantage gained with its equipped Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, which can detect many vessels or aircraft in than older radar. This improves the monitoring ability of the drone to see adversaries close or near. For the most part, the drone offers users an Open Mission Systems (OMS) approach for a multi-mission purpose.
Leonardo systems added a few goodies to their electronics suite, one of them is a small target detection capability that allows pinpoint detection of smaller objects. For example, people shipwreck in the ocean. Built-in are systems that compensate if several parts of the system fail.
The maritime MQ-9B variant plus the Leonardo systems make the drone one of the most capable for naval or other uses.
More systems like the SAGE electronic surveillance module that will detect radar emission if there are any. It is projected to work in a wide area when perfected.
The US Sea Guardian Drone will be a flexible system with Seaspray and SAGE as options for buyers.