Sagem Defense, PARIS: On February 5, 2008, the AASM modular air-to-ground weapon was successfully fired with an infrared homing device from a Mirage 2000 fighter. The firing completes the industrial validation of this second AASM version.
Developed and manufactured by Sagem Défense Sécurité (SAFRAN Group), the AASM is in a class of its own worldwide. As a modular weapon, it consists of a guidance kit and a range enhancement kit that can be adapted to standard bomb bodies. As such, it can carry out highly accurate strikes with a range of more than 50km.
The tested version integrates a terminal-guidance infrared imager that rounds out the inertial and GPS guidance of the basic version.
The firing, which took place at the French defense procurement agency’s Biscarosse test center, was particularly ambitious: it entailed hitting in a mock industrial zone a target whose GPS coordinates – transmitted to the AASM before the test – were purposely shifted several hundred meters from the actual position.
The AASM’s infrared imager used its image processing algorithms to identify the target several seconds before impact. It then corrected its trajectory at the last moment in order to hit the target with great accuracy.
This demonstrates the capability of the infrared version of the AASM to carry out extremely precise strikes on targets whose GPS coordinates are not accurately known.
Consisting of two divisions, Sagem Avionics and Sagem Optronics and Defense, Sagem Défense Sécurité is a high-technology company in SAFRAN Group. It is among the worldwide leaders in its respective businesses.
Sagem Avionics Division is present in two main areas: inertial navigation, where it is the leading European company and the third largest worldwide, and aeronautic systems, where it is the worldwide leader in helicopter flight control. Sagem Optronics and Defense Division designs and develops thermal vision equipment and air-land systems. It is the European leader in surveillance and fire control optronics.
