Thales and Schiebel to supply UK Royal Navy with rotary UAS solution to meet Peregrine UCR

The Peregrine UAS, which comprises a Schiebel S-100 Camcopter and a Thales I-Master radar, will be deployed on board an RN Type 23 frigate in the Gulf from 2024. (Schiebel)

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded Thales and Schiebel a GBP20 million (USD24.1 million) contract to supply the Royal Navy (RN) with a rotary-wing unmanned aircraft system (RUAS) to meet an urgent capability requirement (UCR) for enhanced situational awareness, principally in the Gulf region.

Under the contract, announced on 10 February, Schiebel, together with Thales as prime contractor and lead systems integrator, will supply a single Camcopter S-100 UAS fitted with a suite of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors and systems that will extend the ‘eyes and ears' of RN ships on operational taskings.

The new UAS, dubbed ‘Peregrine', will be deployed on board one of the RN's Duke-class Type 23 frigates in the Gulf region from 2024. It will be used to find, fix, track, and assess a range of threats in the region, including those posed by Iranian fast inshore attack craft – both manned and unmanned – operating alone and in large numbers in Gulf waters. According to the RN the Peregrine system will be the first unmanned rotary-wing aircraft to operate alongside the navy's Wildcat helicopters, and will support the provision of persistent, integrated, and assured aerial surveillance to protect the RN's frigates in the region.

The Peregrine sensor suite will combine Thales' I-Master radar with an electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) surveillance pod and an identification friend or foe (IFF) capability supported by an automatic identification system supplied by Shine Micro and integrated with CarteNav's AIMS-ISR mission system.