[018] ~ UAVs in different countries

United States:
~ see our analysis: UAVs in United States - The 2006 Budget provides $1.7 billion for unmanned vehicles

Japan:

Japan looks to build own unmanned spy aircraft
A Defense Agency research institute plans to produce two prototype high-altitude,
long-endurance unmanned reconnaissance aircraft by fiscal 2012 at a total cost of 22 billion, yen
The institute hopes to manufacture the planes domestically instead of importing them from the United States
The agency's Technical Research and Development Institute believes it is necessary to acquire independent technology
on unmanned aerial systems as the foundation for developing such aircraft and other planes in the future
The institute has requested 180 million yen to be included in its budget for the next fiscal year to start the project
Long-endurance unmanned aircraft are capable of carrying radar and optical sensors
and can cruise for extended periods at high altitudes over target zones.
They are effective in detecting suspicious vessels and defending outlying islands
and are expected to contribute to missile defense by providing surveillance on ballistic missile launches.
The prototype would be able to operate for more than 10 hours at an altitude of about 15,000 meters.
By comparison, the U.S. Global Hawk, which costs 5.7 billion yen each, flies for more than 35 hours at about 20,000 meters.
The U.S. Predator B, at 800 million, yen cruises for more than 30 hours at 15,000 meters.
The agency began fundamental technological research in fiscal 2003 on unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.
It has spent 2.4 billion yen on the research so far but concluded it would take a long time for the envisioned plane to be developed for practical use.
Defense Agency Director General Yoshinori Ono has indicated he would consider choosing the less expensive option of introducing the U.S. aircraft
Experts believe the "made-in-Japan" plan surfaced because some within the agency hope to protect Japan's defense technology infrastructure
since deployment of equipment in the SDF is increasingly centered on U.S.-led arms systems, including in missile defense.
The institute is hoping that through developing unmanned reconnaissance plane domestically,
Japan could acquire technology that would be applicable to other kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles
and close the gap between Japan and the U.S. in intelligence-gathering capabilities, the experts said.
There are concerns the latest plan would be a repeat of the costly F-2 support fighter,
which Japan decided to develop jointly with the USA because it did not want to import such an aircraft.
The F-2 costs a hefty 1.2 billion yen each.

South Korea:

South Korea has developed the world¡¯s largest blimp-type electric motor-propelled unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV
The UAV is to be used as a next-generation telecom signal relay station as well as for climate observation.
14 local companies, including Hanwha Corp. Shinyoung Heavy Industries and Neuros, jointly developed the UAV
along with Seoul National University and Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology

China:

China and UAVs
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is one of the latest military transformation
and force-multiplying technologies currently being pursued by many countries around the world.
Initially developed as an alternative for piloted platforms to undertake airborne intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions in high risk regions,
the UAV is currently developing towards more complex tasks such as ground strike and air combat.

The PLA has been watching closely how the U.S. armed forces used UAVs to take on various missions
during the 2002 war on terrorism in Afghanistan and the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Strong evidence shows that the PLA has many active UAV programmes with technology assistance
from foreign countries such as Israel and possibly Russia as well.

China has been developing UAV technology since the 1970s.
Early UAVs in service with the PLA were mainly used as target drone for air defence training,
and for long range strategic reconnaissance mission.
In the late 1980s the PLA introduced several tactical short-range UAVs for ISR missions in the battlefield.
Since the 1990s the PLA has been working closely with Israel to develop some more advanced UAV systems for ISR,
target acquisition, electronic intelligence (ELINT), and electronic countermeasures (ECM) roles.
Modern Chinese short-range UAVs like the W-30 and W-50 bear a strong resemblance to early Israeli tactical UAVs like the Searcher.
In addition, the possibility of such co-operation is also suggested by Israel’s prominent display of UAVs at Zhuhai Airshows.

The PLA has shown an interest in developing far more sophisticated UAVs
for complex tasks such as airborne early warning (AEW) and ground strike.
At the 2002 Zhuhai show the Guizhou Company unveiled an updated version
of its turbofan-powered WZ-2000 stealthy long-range UAV concept
that draws heavily from the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk.
The PLA has already obtained some Israeli-made Harpy anti-radar UAV in the mid-1990s,
which would likely entail a transfer of UAV design and control technologies
that would be useful for future PLA UAVs.
Additionally, the PLAAF was seen testing ground UAVs converted from retired J-5 and J-7 fighter aircraft.

The PLA may also be developing Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs).
At the 2000 Zhuhai Air Show the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (BUAA)
revealed a computer virtual aircraft simulation system that it claimed was in production to train pilots
for the J-7 and J-8 fighters.
BUAA engineers confirmed that the system was going to be slaved to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
In late 2000 reports after the Zhuhai show indicated that the Guizhou WZ-2000A stealthy UAV
may form the PLA’s first UCAV for the purpose of penetrating and suppressing enemy air defences.
At the same time, Russian companies such as Sukhoi is also actively promoting its UAV concept and designs to China,
providing the PLA with another valuable source of UAV technology.

Poland:

Poland

Finland:

Robonic - Robonic to Launch UAV Test Flight Centre In Finland
Robonic Ltd of Finland is to establish a dedicated UAV test flight centre at Kemijarvi, Finland.
This new centre will support development, test and evaluation, and operational training for ground launched targets and tactical UAV’s.
The facilities will include support for both catapult and runway launched air vehicles.
Robonic Managing Director Mr Juha Moisio says the initiative reflects the rapid development of the unmanned air vehicles
marketplace globally. UAV’s are poised to become one of the powerhouse segments of the global aerospace and defence industries.
This new range will provide Europe with a dedicated UAV test and training facility
that can support year round operations in an extremely wide range of climate conditions.
The range will be located just inside the Artic Circle.
The Kemijarvi airfield, located some 90km east of the town of Rovaniemi,
already has a 1200m runway and basic airfield infrastructure that supports year round civil and military flying operations.
The range area in the initial phase will comprise of some 1000 to 1500 square kilometres of air space.
The air space in the test region is uncontrolled i.e. class G airspace.
With the UAV test flights will be conducted in segregated airspace.
Robonic has been working closely with Finnish regional and national authorities, both civil and military,
over the past year to secure all necessary approvals for the range development programme.
The Finnish authorities have provided high level support for this new initiative” Moisio said.
With the congested air space of Central and Western Europe already constraining UAV operations,
we believe this new open environment will provide an important stimulus to development of unmanned air system
by the European aerospace and defence industries”.
“We anticipate everything going as planned that we will be able to have the first test flights at Kemijärvi in the spring of 2006”
Robonic will operate the facility as a complete turnkey service for clients.
This will include supporting applications to the FCAA on behalf of potential clients for necessary permits
to facilitate flight operations.
Longer term development options include using the range for civil and military UAV pilot training
and systems integration development testing.
Robonic Ltd of Tampere, Finland design and manufactures pneumatic catapult launchers designed for a wide array of air vehicles.

The Finnish Ministry of Defence order
The Finnish Ministry of Defence has ordered a Ranger Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system for about $20 million.
The order includes an option for the supply of two additional systems.
During the last half year three Ranger UAV systems have been delivered to the Swiss Armed Forces
by the Swiss-Israeli consortium responsible for producing the system.
IAI / MALAT is a senior member of the Swiss-Israeli consortium led by Oerlikon-Contraves (Zurich, Switzerland)
that manufactures the Ranger.
The Ranger Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) System was designed for day and night battlefield reconnaissance and surveillance.
The Ranger has been optimized for use in the difficult weather
and geographical conditions that can be encountered in both Switzerland and Finland.
The aerial vehicle was developed and manufactured by the Swiss Aircraft & Systems Enterprise Corp.
Special attention was given to weatherproofing, airworthiness and adjusting the aerial vehicle to the European environment.
The UAV's body is constructed of composite materials with high-aspect-ratio wings mounted low on the fuselage,
twin-boom tail and a single rudder and is equipped with an emergency parachute.
The Ranger is launched automatically from a truck-mounted hydraulic catapult
and has skids for automatic landing on a short grass strip or unprepared snow/ice surface.
The Ranger system includes 6 Air Vehicles, a Launcher, an advanced Ground Control Stations (GCS),
Remote Communications Terminals (RCT) and Ground Support Equipment (GSE).
The Ranger's primary sensors is an IAI/Tamam's MOSP (a dual TV camera and IR sensor mounted in a rotating retractable turret).
The Ranger can also carry customer furnished equipment packages for other roles.
Note: Rheinmetall DeTec AG ­ the defence technology arm of the Rheinmetall group ­ has taken up a 100% interest in Oerlikon Contraves AG of Zurich, Switzerland

Germany:

Germany & UAVs

Australia:

IntelliTech Microsystems Delivers UAV To University Of South Australia
IntelliTech Microsystems has delivered a Vector P Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to The University of South Australia
The Vector P will be used by the University's School of Computer and Information Science as part of an effort to develop a new UAV flight control system.

Australia launches UAV initiative
Funding for the initiative is to be raised by linking a multitude of Australian federal and state government grant schemes
However, if insufficient resources are garnered,
the fall-back plan is to foster a variety of UAV-related technologies to improve Australian industry capability
and competitiveness in this sector.
The project is being co-ordinated by the Department of Industry,
Tourism and Resources (DITR) as part of the national Aerospace Industry Action Agenda officially released by the Australian government in March. Switzerland:

RUAG UAV
The RANGER Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) is a miniature fixed-wing lightweight aircraft,
remotely controlled from the Ground Control Station.
The UAV is equipped with a skid system which allows landing on unprepared grass strips or snow.
A wheeled version is also available.
The system is designed for full automatic take-off and landing.
The emergency parachute system provides full safety.
The modular concept allows the implementation of different payloads according to the customer's needs.
As well as system status reports,
the UAV transmits real-time video/FLIR pictures with coordinates of the objects observed
or other information, depending on the pay-load, to the Ground Control Station for decision making and/or processing.

Standard payload is the MOSP Mk III, an advanced, lightweight multimission spherical payload with autotrack capability.
It is available in various configurations, either:

TV

FLIR

Combi TV/FLIR

TV with Laser Designator

FLIR with Laser Designator
Christian

France:

Dassault, EADS Team Up To Tackle World Market
France has pulled together two aerospace rivals, Dassault Aviation and EADS,
to develop strategic reconnaissance and combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
in a bid to grab a slice of what they view as a growing global market.

EADS and Dassault have signed a founding agreement on a Medium Altitude Long Endurance UAV
and the Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle,
which sets the basis for European industry in military reconnaissance and combat aircraft,
Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said in her opening speech at the Eurosatory land weapons show here.

French executives welcomed the announcement,
which accompanied a second Alliot-Marie pledge to fund a 135-million-euro ($163 million) technology demonstrator
for France’s new networked air-land warfare concept. Called Bulle Operationelle Aeroterrestre (BOA),
it will provide the sophisticated framework for using the data delivered by UAVs and other sensors.
The executives said the efforts would boost the entire defense sector,
give industry direction in vital technology areas and bring together competitors
who would not normally sit around the same table as partners.

The first projects under the agreement will be a new medium-altitude,
long-endurance UAV called EuroMALE, and a combat UAV called Neuron.
France will fund some of the work, and is seeking other European partners
EADS is expected to bring in Germany and Spain.

EADS officials put the world market for strategic reconnaissance drones at 3 billion euros, outside the United States and Russia.

The proposed UAVs would appear to compete against such U.S. products as General Atomics’ Predator B
and Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk,
but U.S. aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia sees the new partnership as “not much of a threat” to U.S. UAV makers.
Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group consultancy in Fairfax, Va.,
doubts the European companies can improve much upon U.S. airframe and sensor technology.
He also said the Pentagon’s hefty UAV budget will keep boosting U.S. makers
while Dassault and EADS chase a world market that is “nothing like 3 billion euros.”

EADS will be the prime contractor for EuroMALE,
Dassault chief executive Charles Edelstenne told journalists June 17.

The company will likely draw on its experience helping build the Global Hawk long-range recon UAV
with Northrop Grumman, El Segundo, Calif.,
an aircraft based on work done by
Israel Aircraft Industries, Lod, Israel.
An EADS official said IAI would receive royalties and licensing fees but would not be an active partner.

EuroMALE is due to fly in 2008.
During its demonstrator phase, EADS will be the prime contractor and Thales will work on the ground systems.
When production begins, Thales and EADS will be joint primes,
with Dassault in a secondary role. Sagem, which builds the Sperwer tactical drone, will also help.

Alliot-Marie expects EuroMALE development to cost 300 million euros:
75 million euros from the French government, 100 million euros from EADS, 25 million from Thales,
and the rest from other governmental and industrial partners.

Italy, Switzerland, Spain and the U.K. have expressed interest in joining the program, Edelstenne said.

An official with France’s military procurement agency, the Délégation Générale pour l’Armament (DGA),
said the country needed four to six reconnaissance drones.

Israel:

Israel's UAV makers set sights on new horizon
The country with the greatest experience in uninhabited air vehicles operations continues to explore new missions for its UAV fleet
The Israeli Air Force's 200 Squadron, located at an airfield just south of Tel Aviv,
is the most experienced operator of uninhabited air vehicles (UAVs) on the planet.

Formed in the early 1970s, at a time when the UAV's usefulness to the military community was scarcely acknowledged outside the USA,
the IAF's 200 Sqn has been in the thick of things ever since.

Paris, Airshow 2005

In the United States, Europe, Israel and a dozen other countries,
millions of dollars a year are being spent to develop unmanned drones,
ranging from nearly full-size fighter aircraft to hand-launched flying spies.

Some experts say that pilotless flight is the wave of the future.
The majority of aviation will be unmanned in the next 25 to 50 years,
said Alex Hendriks, head of the airspace and flow management business division at Eurocontrol,
the pan-European air traffic management organization.

Others do not go that far. Yves Robins, vice president of international relations for Dassault Aviation of France,
said unmanned air vehicles, or UAVs "are not likely to entirely replace piloted aircraft,
except in persistent and dirty situations"
- meaning situations warranting lengthy observation or posing a high risk to a pilot's life.

Missions now envisioned for UAVs include search and rescue behind enemy lines
to recover the pilots of crashed aircraft and special force drop-offs.

An Auckland, New Zealand, company, TGR helicopters,
announced the world's first unmanned combat helicopter in Paris this month.

Designed for just this type of mission, the Snark,
which is also the first diesel-powered helicopter,
is nine meters, or 30 feet, long, incorporates radar-invisible stealth technology,
can carry two passengers on stretchers or two fully armed commandos and can fly for 24 hours.
Armed with both rockets and missiles, it is protected by a laser-guided self-defense rocket system,
said Trevor Rogers, the president of TGR.

At the other end of the scale, the past year has seen an "enormous influx of mini-UAVs" the size of model aircraft,
for close observation tasks, said Peter van Blyenburgh,
the president of UVS International.
UVS is an organization mandated to tackle issues of airworthiness, certification and air traffic management
to enable UAVs to fly in nonsegregated airspace.

"In Iraq and Afghanistan, operations are undertaken by small groups of soldiers who are self-reliant for their information,
" van Blyenburgh said.

For urban warfare, developers are working on "equipment that flies lower,
in the streets, and that has communications and video links that go through buildings," he said.

To meet that challenge, the French Defense Ministry in 2002 opened a Europewide competition
to design a surveillance microdrone, less than 0.5 meters in diameter and weighing less than 500 grams,
or 1.1 pounds, able to fly for one hour over a range of 10 kilometers, or six miles.
Prototypes are due to fly a course through an uninhabited village in central France this year.

UAVs were used in Bosnia and are still being used in Kosovo, and according to Van Blyenburgh,
there are "15 different ones already in operational use in Iraq and Afghanistan."

A German mini-UAV, Aladin, and the French-made Sperwer have been deployed in Afghanistan,
while U.S.-designed, Italian-made Predators are deployed in Iraq.

Unsurprisingly, the United States is the world leader, with 202 UAV projects, according to UVS International.

U.S. forces use, among others, the Global Hawk, a high altitude, long endurance,
or HALE, strategic observation aircraft that cruises at 18,000 meters and can stay airborne for 30 hours;
while marines on the ground use the Dragon Eye,
which flies at a height of 150 meters for up to 53 minutes,
can be carried in a backpack and is catapulted into the air
for close reconnaissance missions with the aid of an elastic cord.

France and Israel come next, with 52 projects apiece.

European Aeronautic Defense & Space is working with Northrop Grumman on Eurohawk,
a joint venture based on the Global Hawk, and is to be prime contractor for a €350 million,
or $430 million, program to develop a high-altitude long-range electronic intelligence gatherer for the German Air Force.

Russia
Home to Sukhoi and MiG, Russia can no longer afford new fighters
It is funding 14 UAV projects

UAVs & Networks
~ read: Network architectures and UAVs




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