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Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) have been used by military forces for many years. Today, with new technologies and increased reliability, they offer significant operational benefits and governments across the globe are increasingly recognising the key future roles they could play in their defence armouries. Recent developments in technologies and an increasing drive to protect personnel from harm are expanding the operational roles of UAVs.

The crucial systems dimension of UAVs

Surveillance and reconnaissance UAVs are used to acquire and disseminate information. To act as "force multipliers" they must respond to military commanders' needs for planned acquisition, exploitation and fusion of raw data, and disseminate intelligence at the right time and in the right place for them to take command decisions.  UAV systems thus make an essential contribution to armed forces' Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities.

Thales has adopted a network-centric approach as opposed to the more traditional platform-centric approach which involves collating and exploiting data from multiple sensors and disseminating usable intelligence to command posts. It offers the best guarantees of delivering the right information to military commanders at the right time and in the right place. This is a vital factor in maintaining the tempo and decision-making superiority needed in modern military scenarios.

A major force in UAV systems in Europe

Thales' extensive experience and expertise in sensor technology and systems integration are key to the Group's leadership position in UAV systems. The company has an in-depth understanding of all the payload technologies: imagery (optronic and radar), ESM, jamming, communications and navigation. In addition to this technology, and expertise, Thales is positioned as a systems integrator, and has the capability to act as overall prime contractor for UAV systems.

Potential sensor configurations and critical UAV system functions are integrated and assessed in a synthetic environment - a virtual reality simulation which accurately represents real-world scenarios.

Thales is involved in all segments of the UAV market, from mini-UAVs to High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) systems. However, the Group's top priorities are the more mature tactical and Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) segments. In these two segments, Thales is focusing in particular on the following programmes:

• Watchkeeper Tactical Unmanned Air Vehicle, for which Thales was selected in February 2003 for the System Integration Assurance Phase (SIAP). This will lead, in 2004, to the final selection stage for the programme itself, due to enter service in 2006/2007.  Watchkeeper will provide the UK's armed forces with the capability to deliver imagery and intelligence to battlefield commanders. 
• The French tactical MCMM (Multi-Load Multi-Mission) and SDM (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) UAV programmes, due to be deployed in 2009/2010. Thales has been selected for the open modular architecture studies on both programmes and for the study designed to standardise the SDM system's functional specifications.

Thales is also highly active in the field of Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs). In particular, the Group is taking part in system studies, proposing innovative payload solutions and constructing high-level battlelab simulation environments for testing operational concepts.