WATCHKEEPER is getting closer!
This time last year, theUnmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) took to the skies for the very first time: a key milestone in what is Europe’s largest UAV programme. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength, successfully completing automatic take offs and landings and passing its first system flight trials.
These trials, which will continue throughout 2009, will validate the key mission system capability: its role inproviding Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) to the UK armed forces.
Due to enter service next year, theWATCHKEEPER UAV with dual payloads will fly fully autonomously under the guidance of Thales UK’s WATCHKEEPER ground control software, which is integrated within the Ground Control Station (GCS). GCS is a product of a joint venture between Thales UK and Elbit Systems.
WATCHKEEPER is just one element ofThales’s UAV capability. We are already providing another UAV, the Hermes 450, to UK armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan under the terms of an innovative ‘ISTAR by the hour’ service, to meet one of the Ministry of Defence’s Urgent Operational Requirements. So far, it’s flown more than 18,000 hours on missions that provide high-quality imagery and image intelligence to commanders and soldiers in theatre.
UAV’s don’t necessarily have only military applications. There is also a strong case for their use in certain civilian applications, too. And that’s why Thales UK is playing a leading role in the £32 million ASTRAEA programme, which was launched to study the feasibility of operating unmanned autonomous systems in civil airspace.
It’s still early days but a range of essential capabilities’ have already been successfully demonstrated, including a simulated a search and rescue mission, collision avoidance and the ability to behave in the same manner as a manned aircraft. One day, UAVs in the skies above us could be commonplace.