Precision guided missile: Rafael's Sea Breaker 

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has unveiled a fifth-generation, autonomous long-range precision-guided missile, which can be used against a variety of high-value maritime and land targets.

Combining legacy and advanced technologies (electro-optic seeker, AI, automatic target recognition, smart navigation with sea skimming or over terrain), Sea Breaker is designed to deal with emerging battlefield threats and challenges.

According to Rafael, Sea Breaker provides surgical, pin-point precision strikes from stand-off ranges of up to 300 km. It features an advanced IIR (Imaging Infra-Red) seeker, ideal for engagement of maritime and land targets, stationary or moving,  in advanced Anti Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) arenas, and in littoral or brown water, as well as for engagements in which previous generation RF-seeker-based missiles were less effective.

Sea Breaker can be launched from naval platforms, varying in size, from fast attack missile boats, to corvettes and frigates. The land version is a central part of the shore defense, based on Rafael's highly-mobile SPYDER launchers. The battery architecture supports standalone launchers, or operation as an integrated solution, with a command and control Unit (CCU) and various sensors.

Using artificial intelligence, Sea Breaker performs deep-learning and big data-based scene-matching, which enable Automatic Target Acquisition (ATA) and Automatic Target Recognition (ATR). The system has full operational capability in GNSS-denied arenas and all weather conditions. Rafael says the missile is immune to electronic countermeasures and jam-resilient.

Sea Breaker's mission profile enables sea-skimming and terrain-following low-level flight above ground. Flying at high subsonic speeds, Sea Breaker has a multi-directional, synchronized full sphere attack capability, based on predefined attack plans, according to waypoints, azimuth, impact angle and aim point selection.

Rafael says this ensures a high probability of mission success, with a 250 lb. penetration, blast and fragmentation warhead, making a single hit effective enough to neutralise a frigate-sized ship.The missile's datalink supports real-time man-in-the-loop decision-making and tactical updates. It also features a mid-flight abort capability and Battle Damage Assessment (BDA).

Watch the Sea Breaker in action