Sea Guardian for the Japan Coast Guard: JCG orders two more systems from General Atomics

The Japan Coast Guard (JCG) is acquiring two Sea Guardian remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI); the purchase contract has been signed. Both systems are due to be delivered as early as next year. The deal follows on from a still-running contract between GA-ASI and the JCG that covers the operation of the Sea Guardian and began in April 2022.

Linden Blue, CEO of GA-ASI, took stock as follows: “Since JCG put Sea Guardian into service, it has been used for various JCG missions, including support for search and rescue operations and disaster relief, in particular during the magnitude 7.6 earthquake near the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture earlier this year, and for maritime surveillance during the 2023 G7 summit in Hiroshima, and the system has performed efficiently and effectively.”

Sea Guardian with Optix+ as situational awareness software

The Sea Guardian is a medium-altitude, long-endurance RPA system; depending on its configuration, it can stay airborne for more than 24 hours. For Japan, GA-ASI has also extended its Maritime Wide Area Surveillance (MWAS) with Optix+. The software fuses data from the Sea Guardian's sensors and other sources and presents the operator with a complete surveillance picture. This makes it easier to allocate and manage intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) information in real time. The Optix+ software suite rapidly correlates the collected data and processes it into a common operating picture.