Asia-Pacific militaries bet on unmanned systems to meet regional challenges
By: Mike Yeo   November 30
MELBOURNE, Australia — Asia-Pacific nations are embracing the use of unmanned solutions for maritime missions, with several nations bordering the Pacific Ocean and with extensive littorals either operating or planning to acquire unmanned systems for use in the domain.
The countries’ reasons for doing so vary, from a desire to monitor the activities of China’s increasingly powerful and assertive Navy to watching for pirates or transnational criminals. And the platforms chosen range from Australia’s Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton ― a high-altitude, long-endurance UAV ― to the more modest Insitu ScanEagle, which the U.S. government has donated to a number of Southeast Asian nations.
Taiwan watches China
In early November the Trump administration approved four separate arms sales requests from Taiwan, including one for four General Atomics MQ-9B “weapons-ready†unmanned aircraft, for an estimated value of $600 million. The package also includes the Raytheon SeaVue maritime multirole patrol radars, suggesting Taiwan will acquire the SeaGuardian variant of the MQ-9B.
https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2020/11/30/asia-pacific-militaries-bet-on-unmanned-systems-to-meet-regional-challenges/
