The Royal Australian Navy has awarded Silentium Defence a contract to support the evaluation of a possible addition of passive radar systems for enhanced situational awareness in the maritime domain.
Under the contract, the navy engaged Silentium Defence in a gated process to design, install and evaluate its Maverick passive radar across a range of maritime applications.
A complementary or replacement technology to traditional surveillance systems, the Maverick series of radars use existing energy in the environment as the transmission source.
According to the company, these radars don’t require spectrum allocation or license to operate and don’t create a radiation hazard, making them easier, safer, and more cost effective to deploy without loss of performance.
The Maverick series of radars can be tailored to meet various operational requirements, ranging from short range drone detection through to monitoring of objects in Low-Earth-Orbit.
Silentium added that a key feature of this contract was to not only assess the operational performance, but to optimize their integration and configuration in order to support maritime operations across multiple classes of vessels and a range of mission roles.
“The power of our Maverick passive radar can’t be understated in the maritime domain. It addresses a key strategic challenge for navy and enables critical, constant situational awareness of air, land, and sea, even in reduced or silent emission-controlled conditions,” Dr James Palmer, CEO Silentium Defence, said.
“For decades, naval vessels have had to switch off emitters, including radars to maintain ‘silence’ and prevent detection, or when docked due to local restriction, and this has reduced their situational awareness.”
“With our Maverick radars, there is no need for compromise. Our radars don’t transmit like traditional radars which means the fleet can maintain critical awareness of objects in their environment, without highlighting their position,” Graeme Nayler, chief strategy officer Silentium Defence said.
