nEUROn UCAV Spawns ISR UAV Partnership
Related Stories: Europe - France, Europe - Other, Finmeccanica, Other Corporation, Partnerships & Consortia, UAVs
(click to view full)
“nEUROn UCAV Project Rolling Down the Runway (updated)” covers the multi-national European R&D program to field a stealthy, sub-sonic unmanned aircraft with range and payload capabilities that approach those of manned fighters. Now it has spawned a spin-off project that aims to take a number of its technologies, and use them to create a Medium Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) UAV system that will compete against market alternatives like the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, Thales UK/Elbit Watchkeeper WK450, IAI’s Heron, et. al.
Finmeccanica subsidiary Alenia Aeronautica, France’s Dassault Aviation and Sweden’s Saab AB have just signed a Letter Of Intent to that effect at the 2007 Paris Air Show. Alenia, who was already working on the SkyLynx MALE UAV, will be the Project Leader. The team proposes to begin with a government-funded study:
“The three companies will share the capabilities and technologies already developed for the nEUROn Programme – the next generation technological demonstrator for a European Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle, UCAV – and transfer them to the new MALE UAV System. This system will benefit from developed and demonstrated technologies as well as from the tools used in the nEUROn Programme. Moreover, the organisation and partnership model of the nEUROn programme will form the basis of the new programme. The study will define the preliminary characteristics, development and production of a European next generation MALE UAV System…”
