The SAAF Forum

Herewith, an interisting Engineering News article on South Africa's UAV projects in global context. Thought you people might be interested and would like to comment:

For the past decade, the unmanned air vehicle (UAV) sector has, across the world, been a boom market. It is a sector in which South Africa was once a leader (alongside Israel and the US) and is still a serious player. But while Israel and the US have invested more and more in the sector, producing new designs and capabilities, South Africa has not followed suit.

In recent years, UAVs have proliferated hugely in size, variety, role, capability, technology and numbers. When the US and the UK invaded Iraq in 2003, the US armed forces deployed only a few UAVs (and the British even fewer, with only a single UAV design in service). By January this year, the US had more than 5 300 UAVs in service.

Now there are micro-UAVs, mini-UAVs (both can be carried by infantry and launched by hand), tactical UAVs, medium UAVs, and strategic UAVs, as well as unmanned combat (that is, armed) air vehicles (UCAVs). And both the US and the UK are working on stealth UCAV designs.

South Africa is in danger of being left behind.

South Africa currently has two companies active in the UAV sector: Dynamics and Advanced Technologies & Engineering, or ATE. Although the local industry remains innovative, it lacks the support it needs from its local market. Of the seven main UAV designs that have come from these two companies – Seeker, Seeker II, Seeker 400, Skua (target drone), Bateleur, Vulture and Kiwit – only three have been acquired by South Africa: the original Seeker (some 20 years ago), the Skua and the Vulture.

Meanwhile, in the past six or so years, new players have emerged. In country after country, investment in UAVs has soared and technologies have been and are being driven forward dramatically. The market is becoming crowded as more and more countries see UAVs as the sector in which they can establish sustainable aviation industries.

Respected British journal Flight International lists some 60 companies worldwide, that are now involved in the design, development and manufacture of UAVs. Their homelands include Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, (South) Korea, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the US.
And other countries have announced their intention to enter the UAV sector – for example, Brazil.

Not all the newcomers will be successful, and not all will be technology leaders. But some are already surging past South Africa, and others are likely to do so.

This lost ground – perhaps ‘lost altitude’ would be a more appropriate metaphor – can be regained. South Africa has the resources – financial, technological, infrastructural and human – to design, develop, test, and manufacture every element of a UAV system: the airframe, the avionics, the software, the control system, the sensors, and even, for certain categories of UAV, the engines.

The South African UAV sector is an already existing, internationally competitive, high-technology industry that can be stimulated, expanded and developed, and that, with proper support from the local market, can be one of the world leaders in certain UAV categories and be sustainable. The South African Army, Air Force and Navy each need a range of UAVs, for different applications, and would acquire them if the budgets were made available. The Navy is known to be interested in Denel’s Bateleur design for maritime patrol; the Army is getting Vulture UAVs for its artillery units, but needs modern Seeker-category UAVs to support its divisional and, perhaps, brigade head- quarters, and Kiwit UAVs for its infantry battalions; and the Air Force could also use Bateleurs for overland reconnaissance and surveillance. Such UAVs could be put to work right now, and bring immediate benefits, with South Africa’s various peacekeeping contingents.
The South African Police Service might also be interested in certain types of UAV.

Worldwide, among the UAVs best known to the general public are probably two related American designs – the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator UAV and the larger MQ-9 Reaper UCAV. These are among the most advanced UAVs in the world today, and Predators and Reapers based at Kandahar, in Afghanistan, are often directed, via satellite, from ground control stations (GCSes) at Creech Air Force Base, in Nevada, in the US. The US Air Force reports that a unit of four Reapers, including their sensors, costs $53,5-million in 2006 dollars.

The Predator has a range of 400 nautical miles – some 700 km – a ceiling of 7 620 m and a cruising speed of 70 knots, or about 120 km/h.

South Africa’s Denel Dynamics has had an equivalent design to the Predator for some years now. This is the Bateleur, which was first displayed in public, in mock-up form, at the Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition in Pretoria, in 2004. Then, the company hoped that the UAV would make its first flight in the first half of 2006. But lack of investment from either the Department of Defence or the Department of Trade and Industry means that the Bateleur is still just a mock-up.

Another foreign design in the same general UAV category as the Bateleur (medium-altitude, long-endurance) gives an idea of what might have been – and what might still be, if the Bateleur gets the funding it needs. Israeli company Elbit Systems’ Hermes 450 first flew in the mid-1990s and was ordered by the Israel Defence Force in 1997, entering service in 2000. Since then, it has been bought, or ordered, by the Singapore Armed Forces, the British Army, the Georgian Air Force, an undisclosed country in Europe, and an undisclosed country in the Americas.

SOUTH AFRICAN UAVs

Denel’s original UAV was the Seeker, which entered service in the mid-1980s and proved successful. It is still in operation with the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). Some 15 years later, the company unveiled a new version, the Seeker II, with much improved mission capabilities, systems and performance. This was not adopted by the SANDF but exported, and has proved most successful in the service of overseas clients.

Last year, Denel Dynamics launched a further substantial upgrade of the design. The new model is designated the Seeker 400, and its capabilities will be a considerable advance over those of the Seeker II. To lessen the development risk of the programme, the Seeker 400 uses the same avionics and ground station as the Seeker II. However, while the Seeker II has an endurance of ten hours, the Seeker 400 increases this by six hours to a total of 16 hours. The new model of the Seeker also has the ability to carry more than one payload at the same time, while the Seeker II can carry only one at a time. The Seeker 400 will also be equipped with an aviation-certified engine, with reduced noise levels, that would be manufactured in South Africa. In fact, a key concept underlying the entire programme is that nearly all the components and systems will be built in South Africa.

There is currently no indication that the Seeker 400 will be acquired by the SANDF, but, like its predecessor, the Seeker II, it will probably be produced for export markets. A foreign country has already expressed strong interest in acquiring the Seeker 400.

Denel Dynamics also produces the Skua high-speed target drone.

Then there is the Bateleur project. The original specification of the Bateleur included an endurance of 18 to 24 hours, an operational radius of up to 750 km, a maxi-mum altitude above 8 000 m, a maximum cruise speed of 250 km/h, a minimum loiter speed of 120 km/h and a payload mass of 1 t. (Compare these figures with those for the Predator, given earlier). The Bateleur would be equipped with a satellite com- munications system, and would take off and land on paved runways like a conventional aircraft, but automatically, and would be equipped with a retractable undercarriage. It was conceived to be of modular, composite construction, and it would have (in its initial version) a wingspan of 15 m. The idea was that a Bateleur could be fitted into a 6-m ISO container. It is not known how many of these original ideas are, or will remain, valid.

The best hope for turning the Bateleur from a project into a real programme currently seems to lie in the Brazilian Air Force’s UAV programme. Denel was one of nine companies around the world invited to bid to participate in this, and has submitted a bid. Denel Dynamics is already cooperat- ing with Brazil on the development of the A-Darter air-to-air missile programme.

ATE has two UAVs in production – the Vulture and the Kiwit. The Vulture is an observation and targeting system for field artillery, and is being delivered to the South African Army. Each Vulture system comprises the UAV launch vehicle, a ground-control vehicle, a recovery vehicle, two fully operational UAVs and a logistics support package.

The Vulture is designed around a 200-km range, which is also its radio horizon, meaning that it can transmit real-time information without using any relay systems. It is designed to be operated by a soldier with a high school education, after only a month of training on the system. As a result, the system has been as automated as possible.

The Kiwit is a mini-UAV, which has been ordered by an Asian country to equip its Special Forces. Launched by hand, the Kiwit has a mass of 3,5 kg, a maximum range of 5 km (line of sight from its GCS), and an endurance of 45 minutes to 60 minutes, and is equipped with automatic flight control. It carries interchangeable payloads in a pod and can execute a preprogrammed flight plan, or the flight plan can be changed during the flight, and the Kiwit can loiter over areas of interest and can automatically return to its launch point or to another designated landing spot.

On the corporate front, Denel Dynamics is set to be split into a missiles company and a UAV company, and it is hoped that Denel’s and ATE’s UAV businesses will be able to merge and create a stronger company, with a more comprehensive product range, better able to compete in the increasingly crowded international market.

Supporting South Africa’s UAV companies is the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) National Unmanned Air Systems Research Infra-structure. This comprises CSIR designed UAVs, a UAV simulator, wind tunnels and propeller test rigs.

The CSIR currently has three research UAV designs: the Indiza, the Sekwa, and the Modular/Meraka. Designed some five years ago, the Indiza is a hand-launched UAV with a 2 m wingspan and a conventional aerodynamic configuration, and served as a capability demonstrator. Sekwa is far more radical, being a blended-wing-body tailless design (although its wingtips are canted up), with a 1,7 m wingspan. It is the most advanced UAV design to be produced in South Africa, and is being used for research into automatic pilot algorithms and control of reduced stability aircraft. Two Sekwas have been built. The Modular or Meraka UAV is a modular design and intended to serve as a national UAV research programme. Four will be made.

The UAV simulator provides real-time man-in-the-loop simulation of UAV flights and will serve as a research facility. With it, engineers will be able to do research on flight control algorithms - rotary-wing flight algorithms as well as fixed-wing flight algorithms. It is a capability that can be used to test any UAV design before a prototype is flown. The simulator can also be used to train UAV operators.

South African universities are also involved in UAV research – for example, the University of Stellenbosch has a rotary-wing UAV project.

Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter

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