Maritime Surveillance Capabilities for EEZ Monitoring
he Japan Coast Guard (JCG) has selected the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) MQ-9B SeaGuardian UAS to support maritime surveillance operations in Japan’s EEZ. According to Japanese media, the JCG has budgeted ¥4 billion ($31.8 million) for the programme, and is putting together a 13-strong team to operate the aircraft.
The platform, being acquired under the JCG’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) project, is expected to begin operations in October. The SeaGuardian will be used to conduct wide-area maritime surveillance to support the service’s missions, which include search and rescue, disaster response, and maritime law enforcement operations, said GA-ASI on 6 April. The JCG trialled SeaGuardian in 2020, to validate its capabilities.
SeaGuardian features a multi-mode maritime surface-search radar with an inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging mode, an automatic identification system (AIS) receiver, and high-definition, full-motion video sensors, equipped with optical and infrared cameras. This sensor suite enables real-time detection and identification of surface vessels over thousands of square miles, and provides automatic tracking of maritime targets and correlation of AIS transmitters with radar tracks, according to the manufacturer.
The selection of SeaGuardian comes after the JASDF received its first of three RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30i HALE UAVs on 12 March.
