Japan Expands Defense with Acquisition of Two SeaGuardians from GA-ASI
The Japan Coast Guard (JCG) has finalized an agreement for acquiring two SeaGuardian® Remotely Operated Aircraft (RPA) from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), with delivery anticipated in 2025. This comes on the heels of JCG’s ongoing Company-Owned, Contractor-Operated collaboration with GA-ASI for the deployment of SeaGuardian, which commenced in April 2022.
“Since the initiation of SeaGuardian operations by JCG, these aircraft have been utilized for a myriad of JCG missions. This encompasses aiding in search and rescue as well as disaster response during the recent 7.6 magnitude earthquake earlier this year near the Noto Peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture, along with maritime surveillance at the 2023 G-7 Summit in Hiroshima. The system has demonstrated outstanding performance and reliability,” remarked GA-ASI CEO Linden Blue.
SeaGuardian serves as a medium-altitude, long-endurance RPA system capable of conducting flights for 24 hours or even longer, contingent on its configuration.
GA-ASI has enhanced its Maritime Wide Area Surveillance (MWAS) capabilities for Japan with Optix+, which compiles data from SeaGuardian sensors and additional information sources, providing operators with a comprehensive view of surveillance data. This capability simplifies the tasking and direction of its Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) information in real-time. GA-ASI’s Optix+ software suite swiftly correlates and utilizes collected data to create a shared common operational picture. Access to multi-source correlated data facilitates the automatic identification of unusual behaviors over maritime regions.
