FLIR Systems, Inc. [FLIR] is looking to break into the large-ship Navy market with its latest thermal camera, according to a company official.
FLIR’s Sea Star SAFIRE HD camera, an upgrade of the 2006 Sea Star Safire III, is an Electro-Optical/Infra-Red (EO/IR) camera that is already prominent on Coast Guard cutters and the defense ships of other countries, according to Jeff Nicholas, FLIR’s naval systems business development manager. The Sea Star SAFIRE is used by the Royal Danish Navy on several ship classes, by the U.S. Navy for the
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Shipboard Protection Systems/Electro-Optics Sensors program, by the Coast Guard for its modernization program formerly know as Deepwater and by other naval forces for both surveillance and fire control, according to FLIR’s website.
But the company has yet to break into the market of large Navy ships such as carriers and destroyers, Nicholas said, because the Navy wants the camera packaged with a weapons system, which makes the camera much more expensive.
“They have an idea it has to be tied to a weapons system (then) that system becomes so very expensive. A standalone system will serve the bridge just fine,” Nicholas told Defense Daily on the sidelines of the Surface Navy Association Symposium in Arlington, Va.
The Sea Star SAFIRE III comes with both infrared and a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) for daylight imaging, and can be either low or high definition, according to Nicholas. It also carries laser packages and a GPS unit, which makes it capable of night vision, tracking targets, illuminating targets, designating targets and attracting targets, Nicholas said.
Plus, during the day, you can use the camera to see things that aren’t apparent with a regular daylight camera.
“You can tell if an engine is running because you can see it’s hot. You can tell if a tank on the side of a hill has any liquid in it because the line will be visible, because of the temperature difference,” Nicholas said.
Nicholas said the cameras run between $120,000 to $1 million, apiece, depending on the packages. The high-end systems can come with coded designator systems in them for targeting missiles. But he said for a basic situational awareness camera, with laser designator, Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and video camera, it would run between $220,000 and $240,000 apiece.
But in the end, it’s more than a camera, Nicholas said.
“It’s actually a very deep tactical tool and an intelligence-gathering tool,” he said.