European manufacturers of remote sensors need to bridge the technology gap that exists between them and their US counterparts to avoid missing out on a potentially huge market for military and civil unmanned air vehicles.
European suppliers need to work together, and with their overseas counterparts, to “urgently address the existing capability gap between Europe and the USA, while confronting competition from their US-based rivals”, says consultancy Frost & Sullivan.
To keep up with the USA on technology, European UAV manufacturers must form joint technology demonstrator projects that will eventually become development programmes, such as Neuron and EuroMALE. This will help them overcome the technology gap with the USA, which affects the “reliability, footprint, autonomous level and specific capabilities of UAVs”, says Frost & Sullivan aerospace and defence consulting manager Shai Shammai. But they should not overlook the opportunities provided by collaboration with Israeli and USA companies, he adds. “While both Israeli and US companies need the European primes for their access to markets, the nature of these collaborations will be different depending on the origin of the company.”
If European manufacturers fail to bridge the gap, they risk missing out on a share of a booming market Shammai says. “I believe that we are witnessing a paradigm change, with armed forces undergoing a major transformation towards the unmanned. Moreover, the aerospace industry as a whole is shifting to unmanned.” UAVs are likely to be performing many civil and commercial security, monitoring, rescue and communication missions within the next 10 years, he says.
Cost could be a major restricting factor in the switch from manned to unmanned aircraft as defence budgets continue to be squeezed. The “challenge of UAV integration and the fact that it is still a secondary concern for many nations”, combined with the industry’s long development lead-times, could hamper the potential market for UAVs. These factors could have the greatest impact on expensive systems, such as medium altitude, long-endurance UAVs and the “less essential systems like unmanned combat vehicles”, Shammai says.
HELEN MASSY-BERESFORD / LONDON
Source: Flight International
