Coastal & Maritime Surveillance Industry Report: "Significantly More" International Collaboration Needed

4^thSeptember, London- Ahead of its annual Maritime Reconnaissance & Surveillance conference, Defence IQ has published the findings of its report into the industry, in which the vast majority of military and industry experts surveyed called for significantly more collaboration between the international community to deal with coastal and maritime threats.

94% of the survey respondents confirmed that nations should be working together more closely to combat threats to their coastal and border security; 70% confirmed that significantly more needed to be done.

The report comes in the wake of the UK Ministry of Defence issuing an urgent operational requirement for a maritime unmanned air system, in a deal potentially worth £40 million. With the continued investment being made into intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems, the importance of these systems to today’s naval operations and border security patrols is clear.

Other key themes analysed in the report include the major threats to global maritime operations, likely future investment trends, and key capabilities requiring improvements.

The full report can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/TaFueh

Defence IQ’s 10th annual conference takes place later this month in Rome, which will gather Naval Chiefs, Commanders and Programme Managers from over 20 nations in order to gauge what more can be done to further international cooperation on the issue. In addition, discussions with industry will be held on short and long term investment priorities and means of overcoming current capability gaps.

Another discernible conclusion of the report was the growing importance of the role of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, with almost 90% believing that they will be important or critical to coastal surveillance operations over the next decade. Airborne ISR via multiple autonomous UAVs in the future is therefore the subject of special focus during the post-conference workshop led by the Defence Academy of the UK, taking place on 28^thSeptember.

For more information or to register for the conference, visit http://www.maritimerecon.comor contact:

Email: defence@iqpc.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 207 368 9300