Matthew Nelson
Leonardo and General Atomics' aeronautical systems business have teamed up to incorporate the former's active electronically scanned array maritime radar into the latter's MQ-9B SeaGuardian remotely piloted aircraft.
The integration of the Seaspray 7500E V2 radar into the GA-ASI MQ-9B SeaGuardian is intended to support maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, Leonardo said Monday.
The effort will also include an Open Mission Systems capability to equip SeaGuardian and its radar systems with sustainment, service reuse, insertion and technical refresh features.
SeaGuardian houses an automatic identification system receiver, a high-definition full-motion video sensor, a collision-avoidance platform and a maritime surface-search radar with an inverse synthetic aperture radar mode.
The MQ-9B is designed for flexible civil airspace operations. It met the requirements under NATO's STANAG-4671 airworthiness standard.
