ROME: SELEX Galileo’s Falco high-end Tactical Unmanned Aerial System (TUAS) has recently completed a six month campaign of extensive flight tests executed under extreme weather conditions: from the ice of Northern Europe to the 50° Celsius of the desert.
The system has always demonstrated aeronautical stability throughout the flights and has always delivered clear and accurate imaging during all its surveillance missions.
Flights were performed both by day and at night, with Falco encountering rain and ice conditions while in flight. The presence of strong crosswinds at take-off and landing has challenged ATOL (Automated Take Off and Landing) functionality to its limits but Falco has always succeeded. Several catapult launches with a full payload configuration were successfully performed.
All flights were performed with at least one payload installed: E/O-IR Electro-Optical and Infrared and the latest generation Active Electronically Scanned Array Radar PicoSAR. The endurance has comfortably exceeded 12 hours with a dual payload configuration and missions have been performed at long range, exceeding 230 km with direct link and no handover, at an altitude above 18000 ft. Successful hand-over operations between remote ground control stations (GCS), not interconnected, have been executed allowing the range of the different missions to be extended considerably.
Falco is definitely a robust and ready-for-operation asset and is very close to delivering performances which are usually expected from a higher class of UAS. SELEX Galileo intends to integrate ELINT and COMINT capabilities in the current system offering a SIGINT solution more affordable than a MALE UAS solution.
SELEX Galileo is currently developing an upgrade kit which will allow the Falco to further increase the payload capacity up to 120 Kg and to extend the endurance to 18 hours, with a MTOW of 750 Kg.
