DEFENCE
MQ-9B Is the Solution for New Zealand’s Maritime Awareness Requirements When Japan’s Coast Guard needed a long-endurance, highly versatile new maritime patrol aircraft for critical missions around its home islands, it selected the MQ-9B SeaGuardian. This decision offers many lessons for other Western Pacific nations and may prove instructive to New Zealand in addressing its requirement for All of Government Maritime Domain Awareness. The SeaGuardian is the latest generation in a long-proven family of remotely piloted aircraft systems built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. Larger and more capable than its sibling MQ-9A Reaper, the aircraft is tailor-made for users such as the Japan Coast Guard and others around the region. For the Japan Coast Guard’s missions, SeaGuardian will be used to conduct wide-area maritime surveillance including search and
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rescue, disaster response, and maritime law enforcement. The Japanese government’s choice follows a series of successful Coast Guard flight trials that used SeaGuardian to validate the same missions in accordance with Japan’s “Policy on Strengthening the Maritime Security Systems.” Tokyo was so pleased with the trials that it decided to operate the MQ-9B full time. The SeaGuardian features a multimode maritime surface-search radar with an Inverse Synthetic Aperture
Radar imaging mode, an Automatic Identification System receiver, and a high-definition full motion video sensor equipped with optical and infrared cameras. This sensor suite enables real-time detection and identification of surface vessels over thousands of square nautical miles and provides automatic tracking of maritime targets and correlation of AIS transmitters with radar tracks. SeaGuardian has a full-spectrum radio frequency wave detection and direction system that can
Line of Defence
