South African-based Advanced Technologies and Engineering (ATE) has revealed that production orders signed last month with the South African Armscor state armaments corporation for its Vulture artillery spotting and reconnaissance UAV are based on delivery of “more than two systems” over a 22 month timeframe.
ATE, Armscor and the South African Army, which will use the UAVs in conjunction with its long range mobile artillery units, have previously limited their discussion of the project to confirmation that a firm order was placed in July.
ATE special projects director Carel de Beer has told Flight Unmanned that the company remains constrained by the customer on the release of details.
However, he says the 22 month production phase includes introduction of a number of changes to existing demonstration and pre-production standard. While the Vulture air vehicle will remain largely as-is, there will be a technology refreshment programme for some of its flight subsystems, reflecting the 13 year development time for the overall system.
ATE received its initial order for a demonstrator system in 1993, and orders for a pre-production system in 2002 with this delivered in February this year. Army approvals for the production order were given in May.
De Beer says the ground segment systems will be reduced in profile, with this including lowering the height of the truck mounted launcher and ground control station cabin. An additional auxiliary power generator will be added to support electrical power growth demands.
The production order also incorporates an initial spares and training component.
Locking down the production order has provided ATE with a new impetus to re-launch its existing plans for derivative versions de Beer says. The company has previously marketed concepts for a ‘Super Vulture’, offered into the Middle East market during the early 2000s, and a ship-launched and -recovered version designated “Sea Vulture” which was pitched at the South African homeland security market in the 2003-2005 period.
Both those concepts were placed “on hold” while finalising the South African Army order de Beer says. “Once the first customer is satisfied we can go on to do other systems”.
The primary homeland security derivative is now being progressed under the designation “Commercial Vulture”, with this to support air traffic integration features such as a transponder, a pilot voice relay and navigation lights. De Beer says a demonstrator aircraft has in fact already been built and was test flown in April 2005 with observers from the South African Civil Aviation Authority present.
Four primary markets are being targeted for the commercial derivative, comprising fisheries management, resources management roles such as monitoring national parks for poachers, civilian border surveillance missions, and cloud seeding.
The later role is based on using UAVs as a replacement for manned cloud-seeding aircraft, a mission that de Beer characterises as relatively dangerous for manned aircraft due to air turbulence. The current standard commercial cloud seeding operations in South Africa use chemicals dispensed from a canister that is 30cm long and 10cm wide and this should be relatively easy to integrate with Vulture says de Beer, though more work is needed before an optimal configuration is achieved. Both nose and underwing mounting options are possible he says, with final location depending on weight and centre of gravity trades.
A typical cloud-seeding mission is also likely to be of limited duration, meaning increased canister lift capacity might be achieved by reducing fuel loadings.
ATE is continuing to explore options for a more capable military Vulture, potentially as a contender for an expected South African National Defence Force electronic intelligence gathering UAV requirement.
The initial Super Vulture concept saw provisions made within the basic Vulture design for an optionally wet wing and a larger engine mounting bracket to allow for a shift to a higher performance power plant. Neither capability has yet been exercised de Beer says, but remain available options.
Meanwhile ATE has released basic specification data for its developmental Kiwit electrically powered mini-UAV, unveiled at last months African Aerospace and Defence exhibition in Cape Town.
The UAV has a span of 2.5m and a maximum takeoff weight of 3kg including the sensor payload and lithium batteries. Cruising speed is placed at 50km/h with an all up endurance of one hour. A complete system, comprising air vehicle, ground control laptop computer and data link weighs near15kg. The datalink range is 5km
The payload comprises a video camera with zoom with its output feed directly to the operator, and an 8 mega-pixel still digital camera which records its images aboard the UAV.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
