Australian company Silentium Defence has won two contracts with the Australian Defence Force to trial and explore the applications of its passive radar technology on Royal Australian Navy maritime and Australian Army UAS platforms.

In an 8 March release, the company said it has been engaged by the Royal Australian Navy to design, install, and evaluate its MAVERICK passive radar across a range of maritime applications. This follows an earlier 2 February release which said it would trial the integration of the MAVERICK sensor onto Australian Army airborne small to medium uncrewed aerial systems (UAS).

The company says its MAVERICK M-series of passive radars are low-power sensors that are quick to deploy, and are suitable for vehicle or dismounted deployment. Key features of the system include the ability to provide 360 degree surveillance day or night in all weather conditions, the use of independent battery power, it has no moving parts which reduces maintenance costs, is capable of detecting a wide range of target features, and is scalable to suit different applications.

“The power of our MAVERICK passive radar can’t be understated in the maritime domain,” Silentium Defence CEO Dr James Palmer said in the 8 March release. “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.

“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,” he said.

Silentium Defence’s Chief Strategy Officer Graeme Nayler added, “We’re excited to put our passive radar systems through their paces in a range of scenarios that test and validate the value proposition for Navy.

“As our battlespace continues to evolve, constant, shared situational awareness across air, land, sea, and space has never been more critical,” he said. “Defence’s ability to rapidly plan responses to threats depends on it, and to achieve that capability with an Australian designed, developed and manufactured technology is an exciting prospect.”

For the Army UAS trial, Silentium says it will leverage size, weight, and power advantages of passive radar over existing active radar capabilities to extend the survivability and range of uncrewed airborne ISR platforms, and improve the quality of surveillance data generated.

“Passive radar overcomes both these barriers and exploits megawatts of existing energy in the environment to provide greater range and performance without highlighting the drone or user’s presence,” Dr Palmer said in the 2 February release. “Our sensors are cost effective, light weight and more power efficient which makes them easy to scale across operations and integrate with payloads, even on small format drones and UAS.

“Deployed independently or as part of a meshed network, UAS with integrated passive radar are more versatile and multi-purpose, providing covert situational awareness to inform the ISR picture, and counter-drone capability to protect people and assets simultaneously,” he added.

The company said it will work with UAS platform providers and customers to trial static and on-the-move deployments of its airborne passive radar systems, and says passive radar has already proven its versatility and value in maritime, ground based air, and space surveillance roles with the ADF and commercial organisations.

It says the successful integration of passive radar with airborne platforms will enable Defence to conduct long range surveillance covertly, and increase overall survivability, and that it has expressed an interest in supporting ISR programs such as LAND/SEA 129, and future P-8A and E-7A upgrades, all of which may open up international export opportunities.