Surveillance: Coastwatch selects Galileo mission management system

1 May 2007

By Gregor Ferguson

The last piece of the Coastwatch jigsaw is in place with the recent selection of the airborne Surveillance Information Management (SIM) System.

The Australian Customs Service has selected Italian firm Galileo Avionica to provide the critical Surveillance Information Management (SIM) system for its Coastwatch aerial surveillance program.

The Coastwatch program will see Adelaide-based Surveillance Australia Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Britain's Cobham PLC, operate a fleet of 10 Bombardier Dash 8-200 and 300 surveillance aircraft. Its 10-year, $1 billion contract comes into effect in 2008 and will be the largest civil airborne surveillance operation in the world.

The SIM contract, worth about 20 million Euros over 10 years, will see Galileo Avionica provide 12 SIM systems for installation in the Dash 8s and two surveillance helicopters, along with a fixed ground station, located in Canberra, and two mobile ground stations.

The SIM will fuse data from the Dash 8s' Raytheon SeaVue radars and Wescam MX20 forward looking infrared (FLIR) sensors; this will be downloaded via satellite or line of sight data links to be distributed to Coastwatch and Navy patrol boats and other users such as the Australian Federal Police and Australia's quarantine, fisheries protection and drug enforcement authorities.

Surveillance Australia has provided the Coastwatch aerial surveillance service since 1995. When the 12-year contract came up for renewal as the re-scoped and more demanding Civil Maritime Surveillance 2004 (CMS04) program the company retained the contract after a protracted tender evaluation.

The project has now been renamed Project Sentinel and the new contract comes into effect in January 2008.

Under Project Sentinel Surveillance Australia will retire most of its 15-strong mixed fleet of surveillance aircraft, retaining only its five Dash 8-200s, and acquiring a further five Dash-8s, of which four will be the longer-range -300 series aircraft.

Coastwatch wants a high-technology, highly integrated day and night surveillance capability capable of disseminating evidentiary-quality imagery and intelligence rapidly (and where necessary, in real time) to Customs, Defence and other agencies.

Since the creation of Border Protection Command (BPC) two years ago, Coastwatch has become an integral part of a larger, whole of government maritime surveillance and response network and its aerial surveillance capability is a critical part of this expanded whole.

Three years ago Coastwatch pioneered the use of satellite links to transmit video and still radar, infrared and TV images in real time direct from its then fleet of five Dash 8s to the National Surveillance Centre in Canberra.

Coastwatch wants this capability enhanced still further, requiring advanced communications and an on-board and ground-based Surveillance Information Management (SIM) system.

Each of the Dash 8s will be equipped with the Raytheon SeaVue surveillance radar and Wescam MX20 forward looking infrared (FLIR) system.

Although these will usually be the primary means of target detection and covert surveillance, Coastwatch's law enforcement role also requires the aircraft to close with targets from time to time so that human observers can carry out visual inspections and gather photographic proof of a vessel's identity and suspected illegal activity.

The 10 Dash 8s will provide all-weather, day and night electronic surveillance of Australia's maritime Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Each aircraft will be capable of searching an area of more than 110,000 km2 per flight.

The Dash 8-300s will be equipped with long range tanks; in addition they will also carry up to an extra 4,000lb of fuel in tanks located in the main cabin. These will afford the aircraft an endurance of up to 14 hours, depending on altitude and cruise speed.

The SIM is the mission management system that will fuse together FLIR and radar data and download it via data link to the fixed and/or mobile ground stations.

It is based on Galileo's Airborne Tactical Observation Systems (ATOS), which is already in service with the Italian Guarda di Finanzia (Treasury Police) and Coastguard, and the company is negotiating sales to a number of other customers.

Contract requirements Galileo Avionica's contract also includes a performance-based logistics element which requires the company to guarantee a minimum level of availability and reliability of the SIM system. Deliveries are due to commence in September 2008, continuing for 18 months.

The ATOS-based SIM was selected in preference to an all-new Australian solution put forward by Adelaide-based Acacia Research Pty Ltd and Melbourne company Ocean Software Pty Ltd, Melbourne. The latter had previously delivered Coastwatch's CoastPro secure, intranet based Maritime Surveillance Command Support System in 2003.

The other Coastwatch contractor is Cairns-based Australian Helicopters (formerly Reef Helicopters, and also the incumbent rotary wing Coastwatch contractor), which will use a Bell 412 EP aircraft for the rotary wing element of Project Sentinel.

The Bell 412 flies about 700 hours a year on Coastwatch operations and will be equipped with the SIM and an upgraded sensor - the FLIR Systems Inc HD infrared sensor similar to that installed on the RAAF's AP-3C Orions. The upgrade will include an Inmarsat satellite link and High Frequency (HF) radio upgrade.

Australian Helicopters also operates a single-engined Eurocopter EC130B3 Squirrel for day-only operations; this flies also for the various Police forces, Dept of Immigration and Quarantine service. Both aircraft will carry a single-console version of the SIM.

The Project Sentinal selection process for both the prime contractor and the SIM provider has been protracted; this has meant the Dash 8s will enter service initially without a SIM; the entire fleet will not be SIM-equipped until 2009, on current schedules.