Lockheed Martin demos airborne border surveillance

Lockheed Martin has demonstrated advanced border surveillance capabilities from an optionally piloted vehicle, in order to show how traditional defence-focused integrated airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities can be quickly adapted to address dynamic border protection as well as maritime search and rescue needs.

The demonstration was carried out during a recent European exercise to help evaluate how optionally piloted vehicles or unmanned vehicles can further enhance border surveillance in the maritime domain. According to a company statement, Lockheed Martin demonstrated ‘how quickly optionally piloted vehicles could collect intelligence on suspicious activity or detect boats in distress, then immediately send imagery, streaming video and other gathered intelligence to a ground station’.

According to the company, the demonstration used a Diamond Airborne Sensing aircraft equipped with a FLIR Electro Optical/InfraRed camera and a robust communications suite. The aircraft collected high definition video and imagery over several flights, and captured information was then transmitted to a ground system via both line of sight and beyond line of sight communications, providing users on the ground with better situational understanding and broader knowledge of the immediate environment. In near real-time, ground station analysts were able to view the data, then update situational awareness displays for all users in the enterprise. Lockheed Martin's team also demonstrated how to share situational awareness pictures with a wide range of display technologies, ranging from computers to handheld devices.

The Lockheed Martin team included Diamond Aircraft Industries, Scotty Group, Inmarsat, FLIR Government Systems, FAST Protect AG and Broadcast Microwave Services, Inc.