IAI's Maritime Heron UAS Shows Advanced Capabilities in Successful Demonstration
Jun 10, 2009
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and a Spanish company held a joint demonstration of IAI's MALAT Division's maritime Heron Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) a few weeks ago in the Canary Islands of Spain.
The demonstration, which lasted a week, was carried out for the Spanish Guardia Civil and the Spanish Air Force (SAF).
The demonstration portrayed the Heron's abilities to successfully patrol, detect, classify and identify maritime targets of all types. The Heron UAS was operated by teams from IAI, while the command and control system was operated by the Spanish company.
The demonstration included several successful operational fights, during which the team of operators complied with the requests of Guardia Civil and the SAF for the UAS to perform certain tasks. The Heron UAV is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAS, can fly as low as one thousand feet and as high as 30,000 feet, and is designed to fly for up to 40 hours.
Yair Arbel, Chief of Flight Operations in MALAT, noted: "The demonstration took place partially under unfavorable weather conditions, with heavy cloud cover, heavy rain, strong winds and Sea State 5. We detected small targets, as requested by Guardia Civil, in the given area".
The Spanish company reported the locations in real time to the Guardia Civil headquarters in Madrid using systems which successfully interfaced with the IAI/MALAT Heron control station.
The early detection of boats and vessels, some of them very small, carrying smuggled goods or illegal immigrants, is an important need for European Union countries.
The purposes of this demonstration were: first, to display Heron system capabilities in detecting maritime targets, showing the high rate of success of discovering them; and second, to report in real time to the command centers of Guardia Civil in both Madrid and regionally, so appropriate measures can be taken by the authorities.
"UAVs are not only an option of the future, but rather are currently able to satisfy the end user, both in patrol missions and under other civil and military circumstances," said SAF Aviation Commander Cesar Aceves Puertas.
The Heron, which successfully took off and landed from an international airport that houses an Air Force base, was treated as a manned airplane, taking off and landing from a military runway according to its place in line. The Heron UAV complied with all safety issues and with outstanding coordination with Air Traffic Control.
The Heron system includes a Maritime Patrol Radar (MPR) made by ELTA Systems Ltd., a group and wholly owned subsidiary of IAI. This radar has outstanding capabilities in detecting vessels at very long distances and classifying them using silhouette target acquisition. The specific silhouette provides the necessary information to differentiate between ships, rowboats, commercial or military vessels, submarines, and others. The radar is also capable of detecting air targets in its Air to Air mode, detecting weather conditions up to 200 nm away, creating Strip Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Spot SAR images, and tracking ground vehicles by using its Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) mode.
Dr. Gilad Dekel, Maritime Program Director of IAI/MALAT, explained that "the main advantage to using the Heron UAS for these maritime patrol missions is its ability to fly nonstop for 20 to 30 hours, during which it provides continuous coverage of the maritime arena. It can locate a wide variety of targets from very small to large ones, and at the same time detect aerial targets in large ranges of tens of miles. With all this information from the platform, the operator and the decision makers can decide how best to act in a given situation."
According to Julio Serrano, Guardia Civil commander, "After one week of testing and once all the results have been analyzed, the mission can be considered as a complete success in all aspects."
During the demonstration, the Heron carried the following payloads:
ELTA's Maritime Patrol Radar (MPR), type EL/M 2022, advanced maritime patrol radar.
The Multi-purpose Optical Stabilized Payload (MOSP), part of the family of sensors produced by IAI's Tamam division. This gives the operator day and night vision of the maritime and ground arenas.
ELTA's Satellite Communication (SATCOM) allows the Heron to operate beyond line of sight and at various heights, some of which would be considered too dangerous for a manned aircraft.
Line of sight communication, which allows the control of the UAV up to 135 nm away from its base.
The Automatic Identification System (AIS) collects and presents data on ships, such as location, call sign, vessel type, vessel name, destination, and other information, depending on what the operator requires.
"With regard to the results obtained in the preliminary evaluation of the UAS Heron I system," concluded Commander Puertas, "Its excellent technical features stand out in their ability to complete maritime patrol missions, as do the simplicity and low operational cost compared with other conventional options."
About IAI/ MALAT
IAI's MALAT Division spearheads the design and manufacture of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems. MALAT offers a family of systems that vary in size, endurance, mission profile and on-board sensors, covering the full spectrum of operational requirements by providing micro and mini systems, and Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) systems. MALAT systems are in operational service with 42 customers that are deployed on four continents and have accumulated over 500,000 flight hours.
For more information, please contact:
Doron Suslik
Deputy Vice President of Communications
Tel: 03-935-8509
Fax: 03-935-8512
Email: hpaz@iai.co.il
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