Paris Air Show 2025: Skydweller to feature AirMaster S radar for ultra-long-endurance maritime patrol

A concept graphic of a Skydweller autonomous maritime patrol aircraft. (Thales)

US- and Spain-based medium-altitude pseudo-satellite (MAPS) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) makers Skydweller and Thales signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on creating an Autonomous Maritime Patrol Aircraft (AMPA) equipped with Thales' AirMaster S Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) X-band radar, they announced at the Paris Air Show 2025, held from 16 to 22 June.

Philippe Duhamel, executive vice-president, Defence Mission Systems, Thales, told Janes that he saw the Skydweller/AirMaster S system as “complementary” to, for example, France's Atlantique 2 (ATL 2) maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), which cannot stay on station persistently but does have more capabilities than a Skydweller.

The Skydweller has an average operating altitude of 25,000–35,000 ft but can operate as high as 45,000 ft in the day, while its solar cells charge its batteries, dropping to 5,000–10,000 ft at night.

Sébastien Renouard, chief commercial officer for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Skydweller, told Janes that they were envisaging a mission profile of 3–4 months of constant flight before taking one UAS off station for maintenance while another took over. “It will depend partly on establishing predictive maintenance schedules. We have just one prototype for now. We haven't flown for a year straight yet, but we intend to get there in time,” he said.

Duhamel said the AirMaster S was a radar that could “follow the endurance of the platform”, generating maritime and air tracks and persistently filtering them with in-built, artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted imagery pre-processing, thus avoiding having to transmit huge volumes of raw data.

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