Infrared, airborne threat warning system in development with Leonardo
NewsSeptember 03, 2021
ITALY. Leonardo’s new Multi Aperture Infrared (MAIR) threat warning system has gone into series production, with manufacturing underway on an initial batch of dozens of units for installation on helicopters including the Italian Army’s Light Utility Helicopter (LUH), based on the AW169M.
Officials claim that the move follows a trials campaign, which proved the system’s ability to quickly and accurately detect threats at long range and to continue tracking incoming missiles in-flight. Deliveries of MAIR for the Italian Army LUH program are due to start in 2022.
MAIR is a distributed aperture threat warning system that fuses data from between four and six infrared cameras to simultaneously detect and track incoming missiles, as well as hostile gunfire threats, via their heat signatures. An optional image processor module could also deliver full day and night imaging, and data recording.
As an infrared-based system, MAIR is intended to offer advantages in terms of response time and tracking accuracy over the legacy UltraViolet systems currently installed on other platforms. MAIR can be installed as a stand-alone threat warning system or can be integrated with countermeasures as part of a wider aircraft platform protection system.
