ADD Plans to Monitor Sea with UAV

It has been confirmed that Agency for Defense Development (ADD) is actively pursuing to participate in the U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) program development, which uses Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) as well as adopting it.

On December 19, a source from the military announced, “Since a few months ago, the ADD has been heavily briefed on BAMS by U.S. Navy UAV developers, and after showing great interest in participating, it requested the U.S. Navy for additional briefings as soon as possible.”

He added, “In the future, when the BAMS program is developed and adopted by Korea, a structure that monitors not only the Northern Limit Line (NLL) but also all the territorial seas will be built.”

The BAMS programs consists of constructing a 24-hour surveillance system over the sea using satellite communication devices, infrared detection devices, and state-of-the-art strategic UAVs such as the Predator equipped with high-resolution cameras instead of using conventional sea patrol planes such as P-3C.

After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. has been actively engaged in developing the BAMS program in order to counter terrorist threats from the air or sea.

It has been reported that the ADD is also pursuing measures to cooperate with the U.S. Air Force in developing its own miniature UAV. These minute UAVs are only a few centimeters big, but they are equipped with video and infrared and other state-of-the-art sensors, being able to monitor up to 10km away.

Sang-Ho Yun ysh1005@donga.com