UMS Skeldar, the joint venture between Sweden’s Saab and Swiss company UMS Aero, has signed a contract with Martek Marine to deliver two Skeldar V-200 rotary-wing unmanned air systems. They are being supplied to support a contract won by Martek Marine to provide remotely-piloted aircraft systems to the European Maritime Safety Agency.
Able to operate from either ship or shore, the V-200s will be used to stream live sensor data to support a range of maritime activities, including border protection, search and rescue, pollution monitoring and illegal fishing. The two-year contract is part of a wider €67 million ($75 million) EMSA program to improve coast guard monitoring and maritime surveillance.
UMS Skeldar has also partnered with Sentient Vision to add the Australian company’s ViDAR (visual detection and ranging) sensor to the V-200’s payload options. ViDAR is the world’s first optical radar, able to detect objects on the surface that have a very low electronic signature, such as wooden and rubber vessels, and small and hard-to-spot objects, such as a person in the water. The system has a 20-nautical-mile search swath and can spot objects that are often missed by other types of surface detection sensor
Source: AIN Online