Aerostat successfully completes border surveillance trial

20th March 2017 - 16:21 GMT | by The Shephard News Team

RSS

Airborne Industries' Aerostat Surveillance system has successfully completed a border surveillance trial in Saudi Arabia, the company announced on 17 March.

The trial, conducted by the Saudi Research Institute PSATRI, was a proof of concept exercise for an Aerostat to carry a combined payload for border surveillance and force protection applications. The exercise was organised by PSATRI to trial its integration software for multiple payloads.

Airborne Industries' 850 Aerostat carrying a Wescam MX15 camera with laser illumination and target designation, a Blighter radar system and a CRFS - RF eye and electronic surveillance system were used during the trial.

The Aerostat was flown at an altitude of 1000ft and the visual, motion and electronic signatures of the payloads were proved to be capable of accumulating data at 30kms. The system can also be configured to be flown at 4000ft.

Airborne Industries is currently developing deployable systems that can carry military cameras for a range of applications such as force protection, border surveillance, critical national infrastructure and large event surveillance. The company will showcase its capabilities at CIPRE in The Hague, the Netherlands in May.