Malaysia to tighten coastal security with order for five radars from Airbus

The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency has awarded a multimillion contract to Airbus Defence and Space to deliver five of its SPEXER 2000 Coastal radars in a bid to monitor its coastlines.

Belonging to Airbus's SPEXER security radar family, SPEXER 2000 Coastal radars have an instrumented range of about 247km enabling them to detect and track objects in a wide range including swimmers, rubber dinghies and speedboats.

Airbus Defence and Space Head of Electronics and Border Security Thomas Muller said: "SPEXER 2000 Coastal is the worldwide first security radar using the latest radar technology of Active Electronically Scanning Array (AESA).

"Its capability to detect even smallest targets in difficult littoral environments ensures a very high level of situational awareness providing security forces with additional reaction time."

The radar can be integrated into surveillance vehicles or on a tripod, and a camera can be fixed to the radar to help identify objects.

The company claims SPEXER 2000 Coastal to be capable of detecting sea, land and air targets equally, enabling it to replace two or more conventional radars required for a concurrent land and sea surveillance.

Currently, a specific version of SPEXER 2000 is deployed in the Middle East as part of a border surveillance system.

Additionally, the German Army will receive a military version of the radar in the near future, said the company in a statement.