The new technological generation of mission systems for military and law enforcement naval units developed by A.ST.I.M. and a new fully integrated radar system have increased the surveillance and control capabilities of the vessel, which has collected hundreds of hours of navigation during the summer to protect national and international coasts and waters.
The evolution has concerned the presence of a system ECDIS/W-ECDIS (Warship-Electronic Chart Display and Information System) compliant, able to:
- natively integrate numerous radar sensors and display their images in overlay to the digital electronic cartography;
- manage the chart standards ENC Electronic Navigational Chart type S-57, S-63, DNC Digital Nautical Chart and CM93/3;
- simultaneously represent nautical and terrestrial maps and AML layers: Additional Military Layers, according to the mission’s operational needs;
- plan navigation or mission through special integrated software tools (with the possibility also to manage any support and cartographic product accessible from ESRI® servers, local or remote);
- integrate to the other functionalities typical of navigation systems (management and representation of radar and W-AIS targets in overlay to the map, route planning and related interfacing to the onboard autopilot) also those specific SAR: it is possible to create and manage grid maps, surveillance areas and research patterns codified according to the technical-operational protocols of the Italian Coast Guard and can represent and manage areas of national and international SAR competence;
- interface with VHF, UHF, HF and SATCOM radio equipment and vectors to intercept and represent the emergency requests on the map, or for command and control needs and for a tactical management of the mission.
To the ECDIS/W-ECDIS navigation component, SeaGuardian® MK4 can support the tactical and operational management one (called TMS Tactical Mission System), much more complex and powerful, which allows the system to be among the leaders not only of the law-enforcement market, but also the military one. The new SeaGuardian® MK4 boasts, in fact, a radically modified system architecture, open type, able to operate in environments with both distributed and centralized intelligence, and allows a great flexibility of use, thanks to the wide use of components of type COTS. It can manage a greater number of detection sensors (surface and underwater), actuators (weapon systems, lethal and non-lethal) and countermeasures, as well as boast a vastly expanded surface surveillance sensor suite. The most critical sub-systems are of the mission critical type and employ fault-tolerant HW/SW solutions or capable of achieving fail-safe SIL2/SIL3 degrees (with respect to IEC 61508) in the most critical technical/operational components. Different specialized mission modules and specific anti-warfare components form the core of the TMS component.
After the previous experiences on board units of class 300, 400, 800 and 900, the Coast Guard has chosen to rely on A.ST.I.M. also for a 200 class patrol boat, thus confirming its confidence in the solutions developed by the Italian company.