New drone strengthens monitoring of marine environment

By the Danish Defense Command

It is a 3 meter long and 100 kg heavy drone, which they have received at the Danish radar station in the city of Skagen.

Over the next two months, it will be tested whether the drone can help with maritime surveillance and perhaps in the long run replace or supplement the marine environment aircraft.

The project is called “Insight 22” and is an EU project funded by EMSA, which is an agency under the EU Transport Commission.

From the radar station in Skagen, the Austrian drone company Schiebel will from Sunday the 15th of May operate their drone in close collaboration with, among others, the Navy's experts and in collaboration with the Air Force's Air Control Wing. The drone will have an action radius of about 200 km and will have a mission time of about 6 hours or spread over 2 x 4 hours as the flights are mainly spread over 2 operations a day.

"It is extremely exciting to be allowed to test this drone and see how a drone can lift our task solution," says Martin Ahl, case officer at the Navy Command, and continues: "The drone has the opportunity to fly for a longer period of time and thus monitor a larger area than we normally can. It gives us a better picture of the Danish waters and a better opportunity to react to, for example, pollution or the like. ”

Cooperation between several authorities

When the drone has to fly around the waters off North Jutland, it happens in close cooperation between several authorities. In addition to the Armed Forces, the Danish Customs and the Danish Fisheries Agency are involved in the Insight 22 project until mid-July.

The cross-sectoral project is the first of its kind in the EU, where several authorities are involved in operational cooperation. Here, among other things, it must be investigated whether a drone and the information available therefrom can be shared between the authorities when the drone flies around and does maritime surveillance.