LONDON: SELEX Galileo, of Finmeccanica, successfully completed an intensive flight campaign for its Tactical Unmanned Aerial System (TUAS) Falco to expand its ISR capabilities through the integration of multiple sensors and additional functionality.
The flight campaign included flights at SELEX Galileo’s dedicated UAS facility at Parc Aberporth in Wales and at the UAV Arctic Flight Test Centre in Finnish Lapland, owned by Robonic, the Finnish catapult producer.
SELEX Galileo also validated the latest version of its High Mobility Ground Control Station (HM-GCS) which further enhances the system’s ISR credentials. The HM-GCS is self-contained and offers a full training simulation environment and mission rehearsal capability. Exploiting a new and more powerful datalink, the system performed “hand-over” missions which combined a number of Ground Control Stations (GCS). This in-flight hand-over, increases the overall operational capability of the system by overcoming the inherent Line of Sight (LOS) data link limits of a single ground station.
During the campaign, SELEX Galileo integrated and tested different payloads: in particular Falco flew with a combined payload including the Electro-Optical and InfraRed (EO/IR) sensor and a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). This configuration allows the system to perform a highly demanding surveillance missions in low visibility conditions. The radar sensor is PicoSAR, SELEX Galileo’s active electronic scanned array (AESA) radar specifically designed for UAVs.
The radar’s capability includes high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI). The high resolution SAR, coupled with change detection, make the radar particularly useful for counter Improvised Explosive Devices (Counter-IED) missions where the system can identify, with extreme accuracy, possible disturbance of the ground surface.
The campaign also served to test catapult launches and automatic landings of the Falco at full weight, confirming the capability to include further payloads or ECM. Falco was successfully launched in a wide range of configurations in different environmental conditions. In simulated “surge” conditions, the time from landing to next catapult launch was under one hour.
At Parc Aberporth, in addition to Falco, other members of the SELEX Galileo UAS family, including Mini UAS, were demonstrated to potential customers.
The ground-breaking milestones achieved on these campaigns are further evidence of SELEX Galileo’s spiral upgrade philosophy for TUAV and mini UAS. The achievements of Falco have confirmed its reliability, maturity, flexibility and most importantly, its extended capability, positioning Falco at the top end of the tactical UAS category.
