SHARC demonstrator takes off and lands using company guidance system, as test campaign gathers pace
Saab Aerosystems' SHARC unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator made its first wholly autonomous take-offs and landings and short duration flights during a test campaign completed on 27 August. The longest of the flights took 25min, with the air vehicle flying orbits at a range of up to 10km (5nm) from the runway at the Vidsel test range in northern Sweden.
The test campaign, the third conducted using SHARC, comprised 13 flights and two air vehicles. Six sorties were flown by a remotely controlled SHARC variant, with seven logged by the second air vehicle carrying an autonomous guidance system.
Saab now plans to fit SHARC with a turret-mounted sensor suite for a fourth flight campaign to take place in 2005. This will support trials of fully autonomous target detection and identification by the UCAV demonstrator. The next test campaign will proceed in parallel to the planned first flight in the third quarter of 2005 of the Filur UCAV demonstrator.
The initial Filur flight campaign will explore and validate the UCAV's low observable features by operating against existing Swedish army and air force air surveillance radars. The Filur demonstrator will carry the same autonomous guidance and navigation system used by SHARC to perform last month's flight programme.
Work on the subscale Filur demonstrator, jointly built by Saab and the University of Link"ping and flown earlier this year, has now been set aside.
Mikael Franzen, UAV Systems programme director for Saab Aerosystems, says the achievement of fully autonomous flight operations is now requiring the company to explore technical options for sense-and-avoid systems for use by both the SHARC and Filur demonstrators. Decisions on the structure of the sense-and-avoid system development programme are likely to be made over the next three months, with this including a preliminary survey of available technologies.
Franzen says the Saab group is to launch an internal survey to identify technologies developed on other programmes that could be applied to SHARC, Filur and the recently launched new-generation tactical unmanned air vehicle programmes. Saab's JAS39 Gripen fighter programme is expected to provide a variety of technologies, he says, with this to include input into autonomous flight control system development, UAV and UCAV certification, and integration of air vehicles into a network-enabled architecture.
Franzen says the internal survey will also support Saab's participation in the Dassault-led Neuron full-scale UCAV demonstrator programme. Saab and the Swedish government are currently involved in talks on potential subcontract arrangements to allow the inclusion of Volvo and Ericsson in the Neuron programme. Volvo wants to be involved in engine development, while Ericsson plans to bid for work on development of the Neuron's flight computers and sensor suite.
PETER LA FRANCHI / LINKÖPING
Source: Flight International
