Airplane Designed For Border Guard, Maritime Rescue, And Military Missions

Diamond plans to roll out a new version of the DA42 Guardian at the ILA Berlin next week. Equipped with a COMINT system from Rohde & Schwarz the DA42 remote sensing platform reliably detects, identifies and locates radio signals. The airplane is designed for border guard, maritime rescue, and military missions.

Airborne communications intelligence significantly increases the efficiency of monitoring and intelligence missions. Airborne platforms make it much easier to monitor difficult-to-access terrains, the open sea and green borders. Radio signals can be detected, identified and located regardless of the time of day and visibility conditions. Therefore Diamond Aircraft for the first optimized the proven scalable COMINT system from Rohde & Schwarz for deployment on their airborne platform DA42 Guardian.

Broadband signal interception and processing ensures that signals are reliably detected. It is even possible to monitor multiple radio channels per frequency band.

Rohde & Schwarz consciously opted for Diamond Airborne Sensing, a subsidiary of Diamond Aircraft Industries and a specialist in system integration and the DA42 Guardian as a sensor carrier. The system is already fully certified and can be integrated within a few days. While performing demonstration flights in Austria and Germany the new COMINT platform from Diamond Aircraft exceeded all expectations. Complemented by an electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera the scenario can be additionally visualized.

The Guardian is a surveillance and reconnaissance platform equipped with two turbo-diesel engines and a range of up to 1800 km with a fuel consumption of only 28l/hr. The aircraft already operates in 28 countries worldwide and also can be used as an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) or OPV (Optionally Piloted Vehicle). 

The airborne monitoring and intelligence solution from Diamond Aircraft and Rohde & Schwarz, among other platforms of this type, will have its first public premiere at the ILA Berlin Air Show.

FMI: www.diamond-sensing.com