A four-month deployment of a remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) for maritime surveillance has begun in the North Sea, run by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and supported by the Royal Danish Navy and Danish Customs.
The service uses a new Hybrid Quadcopter with fixed wing and vertical take-off and landing capabilities, the first time this model has been deployed in an EMSA RPAS operation.
The RPAS service will be delivered by contractor Nordic Unmanned and carry out maritime surveillance tasks in the waters around the north coast of Denmark. The quadcopter can run for seven hours at a time and has a radio range of 140km along the coastline, based on a ground relay station.
The craft also features infrared and optical cameras and is equipped with an embedded automatic maritime scanning sensor.
Environmental monitoring is a core aspect of the new service, with the RPAS to be used to provide information on potential oil spills and discharges at sea, complementing the EMSA CleanSeaNet satellite-based oil spill and vessel detection service.
