The Japan Coast Guard (JCG) has signed a contract for the purchase of two SeaGuardian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI), which are to be delivered in 2025, the company announced on 15 August 2024.
The contract follows the JCG’s ongoing company-owned, contractor-operated agreement with GA-ASI for operating the SeaGuardian system, which began in April 2022.
A variant of GA-ASI’s MQ-9B medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV, the SeaGuardian can fly over the horizon via satellite for 24 hours or more.
“Since [the] JCG started operating SeaGuardians, they have been used for various JCG missions, including supporting search-and-rescue and disaster response specifically during the 7.6 magnitude earthquake early this year near the Noto Peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture and maritime surveillance during the 2023 G-7 Summit in Hiroshima,” stated GA-ASI CEO Linden Blue, who added that the system “has performed efficiently and effectively”.
GA-ASI says it has strengthened Japan’s maritime wide-area surveillance (MWAS) capabilities through the provision of its Optix+ software suite. This gathers data from the SeaGuardian’s sensors, as well as other data sources, and then rapidly correlates and exploits the collected data to form an easily shared common operational picture, enabling the automatic detection of anomalous potential targets over water.
