Spanish defense company Escribano Mechanical & Engineering (EM&E) has developed ASPIS, its new remote weapon station for naval and land use. This RWS has a compact size that confers it a weight of less than 90 kg, being the lightest RWS on the market. It is also equipped with a 7.62 mm M240 automatic gun and a Gatling M134D machine gun of similar calibre. ASPIS includes advanced features present in the Guardian and Sentinel remote weapon stations, including two-axis stabilisation, a target tracking system and automatic tracking. Its electro-optical sensor has an uncooled thermal camera, a high-sensitivity visible camera and a laser range finder.
Thanks to its advanced features, the ASPIS RWS can be used on both unmanned land and naval surface platforms (USV). This versatility allows its integration into the Victoria unmanned vessel, developed by the Spanish company FERRI. This solution represents an important technological advance that will improve the protection of coasts and borders against several types of threats. This new collaboration agreement between the two companies represents an ideal solution to enhance the security in maritime missions since it allows the detection of standardised NATO targets over 13 km away.
The naval (SENTINEL) and terrestrial (GUARDIAN) Remote Weapon Stations, and their electro-optical systems for advanced observation and tracking (OTEOS), have been tested by navies and armies all over the world and are a worldwide reference. The 12.70mm Naval Remote Weapon Station (SENTINEL 2.0) is currently equipped by our Spanish Navy and the OTEOS system has been selected by the Spanish CIVIL GUARD for the surveillance of the Spanish borders. ESCRIBANO is the only national company with technological, development and manufacturing engineering capabilities for the complete production of Remote Weapon Stations, Electro-Optic Systems and guided ammunition kits in its facilities.