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A set of different missions may be executed:
- Maritime safety.
- Search and rescue.
- Fisheries protection.
- Maritime oil fields protection.
- Marine environmental protection.
- Drugs interdiction.
- Illegal immigration interdiction.
- Defense readiness.
- Other law enforcement missions.
Many countries around the world have deployed Coastal Surveillance Systems or Vessel Traffic Services Systems which allow the coverage of their coastal waters up to a range of 40/50 NM. Beyond that range blue waters are explored by heavy maritime patrol aircrafts and vessels.
Light/Medium helicopters are commonly used at ranges from 20 to 100 NM from the coast, the performance of such plafforms, even though of paramount importance in rescue operation, in search operations is normally very poor and very expensive.
The concept of the design is to develop an airborne surveillance platform allowing to explore the area situated between 50 and 200 NM with a very low cost of acquisition and extremely low cost of flight hour.
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The result is an airborne surveillance platform allowing to explore areas from 15000 to 40000 square NM at a typical range of 100 NM from the coast with an acquisition cost similar to that of a light helicopter and a probability of intercept close to 100%.
System design is based on four main factors:
- Use of a low cost aircraft.
- Use of a well proven airborne search & identification radar.
- Use of a format long range day and infrared stabilized optical sensors.
- Use of vessel Automatic Identification System.
The result is an excellent Maritime Surveillance Airborne System which may execute all the missions required on the maritime scenario and may very efficiently enhance the detection range and performance of existing coastal surveillance systems.
The experience of five major companies has contributed to the success of the design:
- Indra:
Largest provider of shore based Maritime Surveillance Systems worldwide.
- Tecnam:
The number one manufacturer of Light Sport Aircrafts (LSA) worldwide.
- Selex Galileo:
European leader in airborne radar.
- Flir Systems:
One of the world top electro-optics manufacturers.
- Airborne Technologies:
Which gathers an important experience on installation of systems on the P2006T.
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