The United States Marine Corps plans to launch a competition 13 October for a new UAV based commercial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) service to support the I and II Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEF) in the Middle East.
The successful contender is required to be able to provide services simultaneously in four adjacent geographic regions, a scale of operation that will also probably establish the winning company as the dominant military UAV-based commercial ISR services provider in the global market.
The competition is likely to be dominated by a two way battle between Boeing Integrated Defense Systems with Insitu offering Scan Eagle, and AAI Corporation with its Aerosonde subsidiary, proposing Aerosonde.
Other potential contenders may however include Northrop Grumman, with its Killer Bee UAV; and Advanced Ceramics, offering its Silver Fox and Manta aircraft.
A pre-solicitation notice for the requirement issued by the US Navy says that “the services provider is expected to utilise a non developmental unmanned air system that is runway independent, capable of day and night operations, provides data dissemination and storage through vide storage wide area network, and will include a searchable database.”
The system is also required to be interoperable with the US Marine Corps existing Rover II remote viewing terminal system.
Source and more info: flightglobal
The accidental death of a civilian in the Democratic Republic of Congo after a UAV crash landing is likely to strengthen international efforts to establish common design and certification standards according to Dewar Donnithorne-Tait, dean of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s Unmanned Systems Institute.
The accident, which occurred in the DRC capital city of Kinshasa 3 October, represents a tragedy Donnithorne-Tait says, but points to the need for the UAV sector as a whole to adopt a rigorous airworthiness framework if the objective of flying in civil airspace is to be achieved.
He explains: “The majority of all UAVs flying at present come from a military heritage. In that environment the design considerations are focused on combat needs, not operation in civil airspace environments. They are designed for flying in conflict situations using segregated airspace and while great attention is paid to safety, the standards may not be the same as for commercial aviation”.
Existing civil agency policies for the safe operation of UAVs already tend to emphasise the need for UAVs and model airplanes to be operated away from populated areas Donnithorne-Tait says.
“That is appropriate for the present but it is an issue as the civil market evolves. UAVs are currently confined to segregated airspace and military UAV development has not generally dealt with ground kinetic energy impact issues as a design parameter other than in terms of safe air vehicle recovery. “
Source and more info: flightglobal
South African-based Advanced Technologies and Engineering (ATE) has revealed that production orders signed last month with the South African Armscor state armaments corporation for its Vulture artillery spotting and reconnaissance UAV are based on delivery of “more than two systems” over a 22 month timeframe.
ATE, Armscor and the South African Army, which will use the UAVs in conjunction with its long range mobile artillery units, have previously limited their discussion of the project to confirmation that a firm order was placed in July.
ATE special projects director Carel de Beer has told Flight Unmanned that the company remains constrained by the customer on the release of details.
However, he says the 22 month production phase includes introduction of a number of changes to existing demonstration and pre-production standard. While the Vulture air vehicle will remain largely as-is, there will be a technology refreshment programme for some of its flight subsystems, reflecting the 13 year development time for the overall system.
ATE received its initial order for a demonstrator system in 1993, and orders for a pre-production system in 2002 with this delivered in February this year. Army approvals for the production order were given in May.
Source and more info: flightglobal
The US Air Force Battlelab and the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency are planning to demonstrate potential use of an expendable UAV in providing off-board sensing and targeting support for USAF Lockheed Martin AC-130 Spectre gunships and armed MQ-1 General Atomics Aeronautical Systems International (GAASI) Predator A aircraft.
The planned demonstrations, to occur between March and November next year, will use the US Navy Research Laboratory (NRL)-developed Flight Inserted Detector Expendable for Reconnaissance (FINDER) UAV.
The demonstration will also support continued exploration of air launched UAV operations by the USAF and the US Special Operations Command.
NRL developed FINDER in the early 2000s in cooperation with the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency to support demonstrations of a disposable daughter UAV equipped with a chemical detector payload and launched from the Predator aircraft. Eighteen trial deployments were carried out between 2002 and third quarter 2003, with the remaining eight FINDER’s handed over to the USAF in early 2004.
At least two and possibly three aircraft will be modified to support the demonstrations, which are also being supported by NRL. The UAV Battlelab is currently evaluating industry proposals for the development of a sensor suite for the trials, solicitations for which closed 19 September.
Source and more info: flightglobal
Denel Aerospace Systems has been asked by South African government authorities to revise its cost estimates for a new national maritime surveillance system built around the developmental Bateleur medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAV.
Armscor, the South African national armaments agency, confirms that Denel has presented proposals for a joint civil-military system, but says the price tag is currently unacceptable.
Speaking to Flight Unmanned at Ysterplaat Air Force Base in Cape Town during the African Aerospace and Defence (AAD) exhibition, Armscor chief executive officer Sipho Thomo said that MALE UAVs were regarded as particularly suitable for the country’s border and maritime economic exclusion zone protection requirements.
“Denel has a package that they have put together which they are trying to sell to the police and the Navy, but they are finding it somewhat unaffordable and are looking to trim certain capabilities out. There is a product available, or a solution available, but what needs to happen is to convince the government authorities for them to use it. The capital outlay obviously is what they are complaining about.”
Thomo says a UAV-based capability is likely to be, “in the long term, very cost effective because then you don’t have to send a ship or a helicopter or whatever. To send a UAV is much cheaper.”
Source and more info: flightglobal
The military is looking into what caused the crash of a two (m) million dollar unmanned surveillance aircraft.
The drone went down Thursday just outside Fort Huachuca (wah-CHOO’-kuh).
The military says the investigation should take several weeks to complete.
The two-engine Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle posed no danger to people or property.
Fort Huachuca is one of the main U-A-V training centers in the United States.
Source and more info: kvoa
In a statement the company says: “An EADS-owned UAV has ditched into the sea on Saturday morning [23 September] upon approach for landing at San Javier Air Force Base, Murcia, Spain after a test flight. The test was part of the current flight trials and is one element of the broad field of UAV activities within EADS. There were neither people injured nor was third-party property damaged.
“The reasons for the accident are unknown. EADS is in the process of investigating the circumstances in close co-operation with the relevant authorities in Germany and Spain. As these investigations are ongoing, EADS is not in the position to release further details for the time being.”
Barracuda made its debut flight at the same air force base earlier this year. The aircraft was first unveiled at this year’s airshow in Berlin in May. The company-funded demonstrator was to be used to support a series of trials of UAVs in a networked battlefield environment for the German MOD from mid-2007.
Source and more info: flightglobal
Denel Aerospace Systems is developing a mini-UAV system designed for use as a medical courier system for use in isolated regions.
The development programme is being funded by the South African Department of Health with an electrically powered prototype system now flying to support proof of concept explorations.
Denel says that the requirement is effectively for a UAV capable of being used to transfer medical samples from remote communities to regional medical clinics in a bid to speed up the patient diagnosis and response cycle. The system is seen as having particular application in transferring medical samples too and from quarantine areas during major disease outbreaks.
The demonstrator has been developed on the basis of low-technology solutions Denel says, with the objective that even untrained people in isolated communities can load and launch the UAV.
Source and more info: flightglobal
TE has unveiled a new hand launched, electrically powered short range UAV – designated Kiwit – being developed for both military and civil applications in the African environment.
The development effort is emphasizing low unit costs and rapid prototyping, with initial work only commencing in May this year says Carel de Beer, ATE director of special projects.
An initial prototype made its debut flight at the end of June de Beer says, with the demonstrator unveiled at the African Aerospace and Defence exhibition in Cape Town 20-24 September being the third built and tested thus far.
The company plans to continue pursuing the rapid spiral evolution of the system, but anticipates being able to supply a complete production ready system within some three months if a customer wanted to purchase immediately de Beer says.
The rapidity of the process is considered central to achieving the low target-price for the system, with an emphasis on the use of commercial components and low-cost production methods.
The airframe is an all-composite, modular structure intended to allow rapid assembly and disassembly in field conditions, but also supporting the rapid evolution of the system by allowing swap-out of components as better solutions are identified.
Lessons emerging from the approach are being fed back into other ATE programmes says de Beer, including the firm’s Vulture tactical UAV, which is now progressing into full production for the South African Army
Source and more info: flightglobal
The South African-based autopilot manufacturer ABAT has unveiled concepts for a local area courier delivery business based around small electrically powered UAVs.
The “Posduif” – an Africans language word for carrier pigeon - business would utilise a flying wing UAV manufactured from Styrofoam with a pusher propeller and an underslung payload canister. The Styrofoam airframe is sufficiently strong to support repeat operations, but lightweight enough to ensure low kinetic energy ground impact effects in the event of a collision or system failure says company co-founder John Weber.
The UAVs would be dispatched from a central co-ordination centre, with launch either by hand or a rail system. The delivery point would be pre-calculated using GPS with the flight planning system incorporating ground maps, air charts, and a terrain elevation model to allow a safe route to be plotted. The original software suite was developed as a toolset for use in planning aerobatic routines for manned aircraft says Weber, with its evolution into a UAV flight planning system commencing some 18 month ago.
The basic UAV has a 60km range, and uses a GPRS modem, operating over commercial cellular telephone networks, as a datalink. The maximum payload is anticipated to be 0.7kg.
The system would have particular application in supporting remote communities in the African environment Weber says, but could also have a role to play in established urban environments, particularly where speed of delivery was an issue.
Source and more info: flightglobal
