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Umanned vehicles - BAE Systems: Out of the black, into the blue
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| 10 July 2006 |
By Nick Cook JDW Aerospace Consultant
London
BAE Systems is due to showcase at the Farnborough Air Show some of its hitherto secret UAV and UCAV technology demonstrator work.
BAE formally unveiled its UAV/UCAV technology demonstration programme in February 2006 at a press briefing in London. The company revealed that it had been working on no fewer than six experimental unmanned platforms in secret since 2002: Soarer, Kestrel, Raven, Corax, Herti-D and Herti-A.
The catalyst for the decision to unveil BAE's UAV/UCAV work was the publication of the UK MoD's Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) in December 2005. With its emphasis on the preservation of UK aerospace and defence science and technology (S&T) and research and development (R&D), coupled to a technology-demonstration programme (TDP), the DIS became a suitable framework for bringing BAE's UAV/UCAV work out into the open.
Indeed, before the launch of these activities, in the 2000-01 timeframe, BAE looked closely at the whole issue of investment and what, if anything, it could bring to the party technologically, beyond the kind of baseline achievements already set by US firms working in the UAV/UCAV arena. The key question, according to BAE's Director of Sales for Autonomous Airborne Systems Andy Wilson, revolved around the maturity of technological know-how inside BAE: was there enough expertise within the company to demonstrate that UAVs could operate safely and reliably in and out of controlled airspace and could it demonstrate a clear leap forward in capability, at a significant cost reduction over manned aircraft, to justify moving into the unmanned business?
The answer to both questions, the company concluded, was yes.
"We've done a lot of analysis of the marketplace and who's out there in the UAV field," Wilson says. "There's a lot of activity in the low-cost end of the business and at the other end you have (the Northrop Grumman) Global Hawk and the (General Atomics Aeronautical Systems) Predator UAVs, which are very expensive." BAE believes it can open up the centre-ground thanks to the new technologies that Herti in particular exploits.
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