Raytheon has delivered the first production version of its SeaVue XMC maritime radar to the US Customs and Border Patrol for use on General Atomics Guardians.
CBP is the launch customer for the XMC variant of the popular SeaVue.
Two Guardian unmanned aerial vehicles, the maritime version of the Predator-B, will be equipped with the system; one aircraft, based at Cape Canaveral in Florida, has had the radar installed and is displayed at the show. The other aircraft, based in Corpus Christi, Texas, is awaiting delivery of the radar and ground station.
The XMC allows some data to be interpreted on the aircraft instead of sending all the data to the ground for processing.
"For instance, do you want to look at targets running east to west? Do you want to look at targets more than 50ft [15m] long? Do you want to look at targets going slower than 30kt [56km/h]?" said Shy Thorsen, a CBP air interdiction officer who accompanied the aircraft to Paris. "It will take all those parameters and give us red dots to indicate [that] these are the targets that meet your specifications."
CBP faces the task of overseeing more than 19,300km (12,000 miles) of coastline from threats ranging from rickety boats carrying refugees to sophisticated semi-submersibles carrying cocaine.
"There's an ever-increasing border incursion problem," said Raytheon. "Customers need sea security."
- All the latest news, images and video from the 2011 Paris air show
Source: Flight Daily News
