Flying
from HMAS Albatross, near Nowra in New South Wales, the Kestrel ViDAR-equipped
Insitu ScanEagle flew a total of 10.5 hours along the coast. The demonstration
showed how the ScanEagle could cover an area greater than 13,000 square
nautical miles of ocean over a 12-hour mission. On its first flight
it successfully detected two Navy vessels positioned for the trial,
before going on to also autonomously find smaller targets such as small
boats and yachts, a submerged whale, and even an airborne helicopter.
The ViDAR system is a self-contained unit comprising high-resolution
digital video cameras and software that analyses the resulting image
feed to detect objects against an ocean background. The system autonomously
detects, tracks and photographs each contact, transmitting the image
in real time to a laptop ground station where operators can then cross-cue
the aerial platform’s primary electro-optical sensor to the contact
by simply clicking on the image.
ViDAR’s cameras pan through 180 degrees, dramatically increasing
the detection area or “swathe” ahead and abeam of the UAV,
allowing it to cover an area up to 80 times greater in a single sortie
than an identical UAV without the ViDAR system. It can be incorporated
in to the ScanEagle as two fuselage slices, ahead of and behind the
wing, without affecting the aircraft’s structure, systems or performance.
ViDAR has been tested by the US Coast Guard and selected for the Australian
Maritime Safety Authority’s new Challenger 604 search and rescue
aircraft, due to enter service in 2016. Simon Olsen, Sentients’
Director of Business Development, Strategy and Partnerships, said this
first operational test of the ViDAR system aboard a working tactical
UAV proved the system can effectively turn an aerial platform previously
used only for surveillance in to a search asset.
“Until now, through limitations with sensors and bandwidth, small
tactical UAVs in the maritime surveillance space have generally only
been used to keep an eye on surface contacts detected by other means,”
he said. “The key objective with this trial was to demonstrate
that ViDAR can provide a detection capability for the ScanEagle, that
we could autonomously detect targets in the ocean in real time and provide
a cue back to the operator. For the first time we’ve demonstrated
that a tactical UAV with ViDAR can search vast expanses of ocean and
autonomously detect very small targets at large ranges.”
Targets detected during the trial included a fast boat at a range of
9.1 nautical miles, a frigate at 12.6, an airborne helicopter at 3.5,
and even a submerged whale at 1.5 nautical miles. |
