I-Master airborne surveillance radar

A compact airborne radar improving the surveillance capability of any platform it equips

Defence
Naval
Air

I-Master delivers all-weather surveillance, pattern of life monitoring, change detection and wide area-coverage. It detects and locates moving and stationary targets at long stand-off ranges over land and sea.

Ground breaking surveillance radar

See things you didn’t think possible, with I-Master

Wide-area, continuous surveillance

I-Master’s 360° continuous surveillance enables uninterrupted custody of targets and monitoring of areas providing complete freedom of movement of the platform. I-Master delivers high-performance ISR to a wide range of manned & unmanned platforms thanks to its flexible design.
Pin-point accuracy

I-Master delivers pin-point accuracy, geo-locating hard to find targets. It seamlessly cross-cues the camera to the exact location of the threat, with no delay, eliminating the need for the camera to re-acquire the target and speeding up the sensor to shooter timeline.
Mission critical operational outcomes

I-Master enables rapid decisions and verification of targets. It provides mission commanders with outstanding high-fidelity classification and positioning capable of detecting ships, vehicles and infantry movement - in all weather conditions and with ground-breaking precision.
See the Unseen

I-Master sees areas of interest in super-fine detail thanks to the ultra-high resolution of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. I-Master also sees changes not capable of detection by other sensors or the human eye via its world leading change detection capability.

Fitted to both manned and unmanned platforms, and selected by a number of customers, I-Master has supported a wide range of mission types, providing persistent surveillance in an increasingly uncertain geo-political environment. This capability has been demonstrated in action, where I-Master has helped the Royal Navy to seize substantial quantities of narcotics in support of contraband operations.

I-Master, a perfect balance of performance and form factor for manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft.

FEATURES ABOUT I-MASTER

I-Master transforms surveillance capability. With automatic cross-cueing, operator workload is significantly reduced maximizing analysis time of the intelligence being gathered. Detection/identification rates are improved, search times are reduced and overall effectiveness is maximized.

Operators can switch between several different modes, depending on the mission, including GMTI, SAR, Change Detection and MMTI modes.

GMTI tracks are displayed instantly on the operator’s workstation and can be overlaid on a digital map, Satellite or SAR Imagery. With its wide area coverage looking for moving targets, the probability of detecting potential threats is significantly increased over a stand-alone EO sensor or human spotter. GMTI can be used to cue EO sensors to observe targets in more detail and ensure surveillance continuity.

SAR mode provides an accurate real-time, high resolution ground mapping capability, even in poor visibility conditions that would defeat camera-based systems or EO/IR sensors.

I-Master’s Strip SAR mode is used over vast areas for border surveillance, detecting stationary targets such as vehicles or camps. Spot SAR mode is used to obtain higher resolution imagery of specific targets for classification purposes.

By comparing SAR images of the same area taken at different times, it’s possible to automatically highlight changes that have taken place, not visible to the human eye or EO/IR camera systems. Thales’ unique Change Detection algorithms allow the user to very quickly see where recent activity has taken place. This technique is sensitive enough to even be able to see footprints left on the ground.

MMTI allows operators to detect and track targets in the maritime domain, ranging from small, fast-moving crafts such as jet-skis, to larger, slower vessels such as container ships and tankers and everything in between. Algorithms designed specifically by Thales can detect unusual vessel movements, perform “pattern of life” analysis and carry out persistent tracking of targeted vessels.

I-Master performs multiple roles such as border protection, wide-area surveillance, land asset protection, counter narcotics, battle damage assessment, Search & Rescue, de-forestation and Illegal mineral extraction patrols, prevention of smuggling and piracy, pollution control and monitoring, collection of forensic time stamped evidence, wildfire monitoring, and oil and gas field protection in the littoral.

I-Master provides a flexible capability for a wide variety of platforms. It has been successfully integrated and operated on aircraft such as Beechcraft King Air types, British Army’s Watchkeeper UAV, Schiebel Camcopter® S-100, Diamond’s DA42 and Cessna 208B, amongst others.

Being easy to install and remove in a matter of a few hours, the radar can be rapidly moved within the fleet, enabling more efficient use of assets.