Sensory perception: shipborne UAVs rise to the occasion

摘要

The deployment of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) from warships not only extends the reach of organic maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) but also allows navies to conduct ISR operations 'on the cheap' as the price of unmanned systems - and their payloads - becomes more affordable. Having pioneered the use of shipborne UAVs during the past decade, the US Navy (USN) has flown these assets over the Arabian Sea to track the movement of Iranian naval vessels and suspected terrorist threats to shipping. In the wider maritime security context, aerial drones have been used to identify and track Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, drugs smugglers in the Caribbean and commercial shipping in the western Pacific and elsewhere.