Leonardo has announced that it has signed a multi-million Euro contract with prime contractor QinetiQ to provide a number of PicoSAR Active Electronically Scanned Array radars.
The radars will equip the new unmanned Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) aircraft that have been ordered by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Designed and manufactured by Leonardo in Edinburgh, UK, PicoSAR will be employed by Canadian military units at sea and on land, for both domestic and international operations.
The company said:
“It is ideally suited for installation aboard the Canadian Armed Forces new system, which is based on the lightweight UMS Skeldar V-200 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). With PicoSAR on-board, operators will benefit from a range of modes including high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging and Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI).
Together, these will deliver an effective all-weather ground mapping and surveillance capability for ISTAR missions.”
The radar has been flown in Oceania, the Far East, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, North America and South America and has been acquired by more than 10 customers, say the firm.
Brochure here if anyone is interested…
https://www.leonardocompany.com/documents/20142/3149735/Copia_di_PicoSAR_LQ_mm07774_.pdf
< 1m resolution and weighs 10kg. Looks impressive.
Doesn’t 1m (I assume when they say less than they mean only just less) resolution seem a bit high for a ground tracking radar, considering the sizes of things you would want to track on the ground.
I was thinking more of maritime uses where 6 hours endurance) to have sufficient payload to carry this, necessary optical targeting and laser designator, and a couple of LMM. That would make a River B2 with single or dual containerised camcopter UAV(s) on board a significantly more threatening presence for pirates, drug runners etc when its doing those sort of policing activities. In routine surveillance mode it could not be carrying the 26kg of LMM (13kg each) but if necessary could do so at the expense of endurance. Even with 2 LMM on board though it would probably have a good couple of hours of loiter time at any reasonable distance from the host vessel.
Realistically the navy is never going to fire missiles at pirates, as it would be front page news of horror stories of the navy murdering pirates. Policing is about arresting or prevent crime, not blowing people up.
With river classes designed to operate close to shore, some form of land attack missile might be more useful, as it could then provide a degree of close air support to any special forces mission that the river could launch, although 1 or 2 missiles is unlikely to be a game changer.
The challenge will be range, which will always be the problem with small UAVs, humans are not the main weight component of an aircraft and so they still need size to hold the required fuel/power.
What i can see in the future is an investment in missiles that are not designed to take out armored targets and instead used against things like machine gun nests/ armed civilian cars etc. Taking away some of the explosives needed to take out armor might make them light enough to be viable for lighter UAVs. Whilst not optimal for peer/near peer warfare, they would still have a use.
Thanks. I stand corrected. Every day’s a school day!
On the lighter missile, what are your thoughts on the free-fall/glide-bomb variant of LMM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Multirole_Missile) at 5.8kg? For use against slower-moving targets obviously but something like a machine gun nest presumably isn’t going anywhere fast?
Also in the land-attack role, what are your thoughts on VLS SPEAR 3? That doesn’t exist yet as far as I’m aware but was at least sufficiently on the radar at one point for MBDA to create renders and I believe even a physical model displayed at at least one trade show (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a picture of that in the past).
If T31 does end up with little more than CAMM launchers then VLS SPEAR3 would seem to give an option for some sort of limited mini-cruise-missile land attack. I assume special forces would need to be on the ground for targeting but as for the River scenario you mentioned the T31 might well have landed special forces anyway. It does also assume that T31 has enough CAMM launchers, early talk of Leander offering I think it was 12 would mean that it would be foolhardy (I assume) to not have all of them populated with Sea Ceptor. I see now that BAE have at least released renders of a new Leander revision that seems to have 24 CAMM (12 forward and 12 amidship) although that’s still doesn’t seem great to me and there’s other stuff lost along the way. (Details of those Leander revisions in a recent SaveTheRoyalNavy post by the way.)
I was thinking the same thing about glide options, although i am no expert and don’t know if the slower speed of a helicopter / lower height would mean they are not viable. I guess you could have a booster to get some speed then glide. As you said most targets would not be fast moving and so a slow ish glide could be effective.
I keep thinking that UAV are the answer to low intensity warfare where speed and range of a helicopter makes a ship way more effective, especially as this is now the main calling of the navy behind flying the flag (yes they are there for war but its unlikely that any of todays ships will ever see combat).
The issue i see is that you may be able to find a pirate/smuggling boat using the height of a UAV and an onboard sensor, but then how do you catch it up considering by nature the ship would be a fair bit away from the UAV and whilst fast warships are not the quickest.
There must be a way to make UAV effective in non-lethal scenarios, but i am struggling to think of it. I was thinking a chain gun but that would be insanely difficult to achieve with the delay/lag caused by control at range.
I guess if you had a really low powered missile you could target the engines/prop, but that would need some serious accurate targetting
The Skeldar or the Leonardo Hero are a very interesting capability. Multiple uses beyond ISTAR. Much more so than the smaller, and more limited CamCopter from Schiebel. Both could mount a small winch and deploy a Sonobuoy like a mini dipping sonar. Put a couple up with a Merlin (control them from the Merlin or T23/26) and you could dramatically increase ASW effectiveness, whilst also reducing the need to use disposable sonobuoys in such large numbers, which are a finite item. In a full shooting war the use of sonobuoys would be colossal, anything we can do to stop our stockpile disappearing in days, particularly when having to deal with multiple erroneous contacts would be a massive bonus. Essentially you’d have a mobile sonobuoy field working with the Merlins larger FLASH set. Detection and triangulation would be much simpler. The cheaper passive LOFAR and DIFAR buoys could still be deployed by Merlin. But the new Multi-Static ones are enormously expensive. You have to question whether they are a one time use item, either in numbers or cost. It would complicate a sub skippers life dramatically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTww9bhPfBc
You have to wonder how much these things cost per unit…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eidMDdMK38s
As to weaponry, the glide version of LMM (Fury) would need to be deployed from height. Fine for a medium altitude fixed wing UAV but for a helo UAV it needs to be the powered version, Martlet.
Nothing more has been heard of the Spear-VL since MBDA did a single CGI image of it. It would need a rocket booster after the cold launch in order to bring it up to speed so that the turbojet could function. Spear will have MMW and SAL in conjunction with GPS/INS guidance so a team on the ground designating is not required.
But a far simpler, and more likely, solution is the CAMM/Brimstone hybrid that MBDA showed a graphic and model of for the the UK Indirect Land Fires work recently. It was shown with a Brimstone seeker head and a E/O head. That is a great idea as it covers so many angles:
– Can use existing Land Ceptor and Sea Ceptor containers/launchers
– Cold launch with no need for drop off rocket booster (unlike Spear-VL), a whole lot easier to develop.
– E/O replaces Spike NLOS, which isn’t all that…but with greater range and speed for precision strike.
– Speed means that targets of opportunity can be hit easier
– The penetration of a tanks top armour would be colossal without a warhead. KE alone will be enormous. Far too fast for APS systems to deal with.
– When used from the Boxer platform shown, could replace Spike NLOS and provide ATGM overwatch for Ajax like Swingfire used to. Either E/O or Brimstone head could be used.
– At least 30km range, probably more like 40km.
– From aircraft it would make a fantastic quick response munition for DEAD or SEAD. It’s not ALARM but could deal with pop-up threats.
– Easy integration with Typhoon
– Easy integration with F-35B (Asraam already integrated, would use similar interface/targeting as Spear) on outer wing pylon.
– Brings a Brimstone capability to F-35B. Much faster than Spear.
– Brings an E/O capability to F-35 and Typhoon
– Unlike the Sea Spear/Brimstone derivative could be easily integrated and deployed by the RN in existing launchers for T23/26.
– Obliterates FIAC’s at 40km range. Can be volley fired. Fire and Forget with Brimstone seeker.
– Easy export market to other Ceptor/Asraam users
Buy that and CAMM-ER and we’re very well set up.
Let’s not get too excited by the green painted Meteor either…that would be something else…
https://twitter.com/byMBDA/status/1042453708011921408
Why on earth have the RN not invested in the https://umsskeldar.aero/our-products/rpas-systems/v-200-skeldar/ which can run this system? It seems a no-brainer. It can be be stored and run from a container. It is ideal to run from a Destroyer or Frigate and seems to be ideal from the QE carriers – as the current configuration does not allow for fixed-wing versions we operate (like Watchkeeper or the Reaper/Protector B).