IAI Navigates Modern Threats with Sea-Change Innovations
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Maritime security, vital for the global economy, extends beyond the deployment of naval forces and encompasses safeguarding commercial ports, energy infrastructures, and transportation lines. In response, nations are enhancing their defense capabilities, striving for improved intelligence and maritime dominance. IAI, Israel’s premier Aerospace and Defense company, plays a pivotal role in this scenario. Its extensive maritime portfolio caters to diverse sea-based missions, such as naval warfare, maritime security, power projection, and offshore defense. IAI positions its maritime activity as a key driver for future growth by offering bespoke solutions.
IAI’s maritime operations concentrate on Maritime Situational Awareness (MSA), Offensive and Defensive Weapon Systems, and Autonomous Technologies. MSA, fundamental for maritime sovereignty and naval operations, is integral to IAI’s Naval Combat Suites solutions. IAI’s prowess is evident in the Israel Navy Sa’ar 6 Corvette, where the company was selected to integrate its radars, offensive and defensive weapons, and other capabilities to meet diverse naval requirements while minimizing development risks and maintaining affordability.
MSA has become crucial due to expanding threats and responsibilities, particularly in the ever-growing Economic Exclusion Zones (EEZ). IAI offers comprehensive multi-layered solutions for these needs – from complete naval combat suites that include the sensors, battle management, and weapon systems for new vessels or upgraded naval platforms to specific systems such as Attack and Defense systems, radar, electro-optical sensors, and electronic support measures providing search, detection, and simultaneous tracking of targets. IAI also offers modular combat systems packed in containerized modules that can deploy ad-hoc on naval auxiliary vessels, Amphibious Assault Ships, or Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV), enabling such platforms to increase their defensive and offensive capabilities.
IAI’s naval combat suites are based on systems comprising its proven technologies. Information from satellites, radars, electro-optical and signal intelligence sensors on ships, maritime patrol aircraft, UAVs, and commercial data-based information systems is streamed to the MSA processing core, creating the situational picture. Advanced computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning techniques process and fuse these information streams, producing a transparent, detailed, and updated situational picture among stakeholders. As the world pioneer in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), IAI offers the advanced maritime Heron UAS equipped with sensors suite of Maritime Patrol Radar (MPR) with Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) capabilities, Signals Intelligence and Electronic Support Measures (ESM), powerful electro-optics, and Automatic Identification System (AIS) for surveillance and patrol missions over littorals and high seas.
Such systems must operate efficiently in environments congested and cluttered with objects and overcome interference while constantly monitoring thousands of commercial and civilian vessels. By learning routine activity and focusing on anomalies, the system can more effectively alert, detect and identify threats, prompting closer investigation and response. Successful operations hinge on efficient connectivity between naval, land, and airborne assets. For this, IAI implements OPAL, a connectivity framework that enables different applications on various platforms to share information for multi-domain operation.
IAI’s naval combat suites also comprise its combat-proven offensive and defensive systems, including the Blue Spear 5th Generation surface-to-surface missile, Barak MX air defense system, loitering weapons, and air defense systems. The Blue Spear is designed to engage long-range threats in a complex, cluttered environment without endangering friendly or non-involved vessels. IAI’s loitering missiles prove highly effective weapons for selective actionable response by providing the ability to collect intel and assess the situation at the target, select an impact point, and even abort an attack if the conditions demand such action. IAI offers several loitering weapons, from the larger EO-guided HAROP to the smaller Mini Harpy, utilizing a unique, multi-spectral sensor (EO/RF) to detect and locate targets at sea passively.
The Barak MX air defense system provides self-defense for the platform carrying the system and area defense for its task force by providing long-range, effective, hemispheric air and missile defense for naval and land-based forces. Operational with the Israeli Navy and foreign armies and navies, Barak MX features a high level of connectivity, enabling the system to address complex scenarios and extend coverage to protect vast areas over land and sea at varying heights and distances. The powerful Scorpius-N Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) system provides complementary protection and electronic attack, which simultaneously detects and disables multiple threats using long-range multibeam jamming. In particular, this new capability provides additional Counter-UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) defense, protecting vessels against this emerging threat.
IAI’s investment in systems autonomy across air, surface, and underwater domains is noteworthy. This investment addresses autonomy technology for platforms and sensors and the user interface development enabling unmanned systems to execute operational missions autonomously. With these technologies, autonomous or remotely controlled platforms with partial or complete autonomy can undertake independent missions and return to the base without operator involvement. In the future, such capabilities will be integrated into vessels of all sizes.
Learning from past conflicts, IAI collaborates with industry partners, customers, and navies to prepare for emerging threats. This cooperation enables a better understanding of developing challenges in the naval arena, thereby facilitating improved solutions to meet new needs.
As a key priority, IAI is dedicated to leveraging advanced technologies and providing creative solutions for demanding marine environments. IAI has excelled in delivering innovative solutions based on technological achievements, extensive research, development, and engineering that effectively tackle these complex challenges. IAI’s wide-ranging solutions cater to various threats at growing ranges of ever more complex battlefield scenarios, ensuring its stakeholders remain secure, agile, and fully prepared to meet the most challenging operational demands.
