EADS Drone futurs

EADS Maps UAV Technology Development

Dec 10, 2009



Robert Wall/Munich



Very long endurance and the ability to hunt enemy air defenses are emerging areas of interest in EADS's long-term unmanned air vehicle road map, although the company's near-term focus remains on securing a future for the medium-altitude Talarion project.

Both the near- and longer-term ambitions aim at carving out a role for EADS in the unmanned aircraft market after years of dominance by Israeli and U.S. manufacturers. The company has been plotting a technology strategy that will help underwrite a range of mission applications in unmanned aviation.

One area EADS has started to explore is devising an air vehicle that could stay aloft for 48 hr., which would make it more economical than current-generation high-altitude endurance systems, indicates Rolf Wirtz, chief technology officer for EADS Defense and Security. The studies are still at an early stage, and the company has not yet selected a power source option. Solar energy, traditional engine alternatives and fuel cells, which feature heavily in the EADS technology plan, are all possibilities.

In terms of combat, Wirtz sees the suppression of enemy air defenses as one of the first applications for a system with very long endurance. In fact, the precise location of hostile emitters is already on the company's demonstration horizon for the Barracuda UAV. A fast emitter locator system is one of the main interest items beyond the near-term demonstration project, says Thomas Gottmann, project officer at EADS's Military Air Systems.

An operational version of such a system could serve as a replacement for the anti-radar ECR Tornados the German air force maintains, and for which no suitable replacement program has been identified so far. German military officials note, though, that replacement of the ECRs is not an immediate concern.

EADS is very interested in a radar-hunting exercise as it starts defining what would follow the 2011 sensor-to-shooter demonstration planned for the Barracuda unmanned aircraft. The radar exercise would nominally take place in 2014, after a weapons release trial in 2013, if funding can be secured.

The sensor-to-shooter activity, part of the broader Agile UAV project financed by the German defense ministry, will likely involve four flights from Goose Bay, Labrador, but potentially also in Europe. In those trials, Barracuda would seek a target, detect it using automatic target recognition algorithms, and then relay target coordinates to a fighter. The UAV would also be used to lase the target, with the manned aircraft delivering a laser-guided bomb to destroy it. Contractual talks to finance the demonstration are now being finalized with the German government, says Gottmann. Switzerland and Finland, which are also part of the Agile UAV effort, would contribute funding, as well.

The sensor-to-shooter activity will follow this year's flights of Barracuda at Goose Bay, where the UAV initially proved its airworthiness following the crash of a first prototype in 2006 and, in a second step, showed basic reconnaissance capabilities.

The current program does not go beyond the sensor-to-shooter demonstration, although EADS officials have a range of other missions they would like to validate in addition to suppressing enemy air defense. Use of a synthetic aperture radar and sensor fusion among multiple air vehicles are other aims. Even control of Barracuda from the manned platform is being looked at.

Barracuda is not designed to morph into an operational system, though. Instead, EADS is using it largely to validate technologies for other systems, particularly the medium-altitude Talarion. The initiative got a recent boost with Germany's commitment to achieve industrial independence in UAV supply.


Wirtz hopes German, French and Spanish defense ministry representatives will convene in early 2010 to give the Talarion advanced UAV more support. EADS began series work on the system in September, and is targeting a mid-2010 preliminary design review.

However, France and Spain are being lobbied by Dassault, Thales and Indra to pursue another approach, built largely around the Heron TP UAV, with most of the development money going into the sensor. Thales officials argue it makes little sense to duplicate air vehicle work.

And France is also in reportedly high-level talks with the U.K. about potential cooperation on developing future unmanned aircraft, although the details remain sketchy.

One key to Talarion is that it will be designed from the start to be able to fly in civil airspace, a critical feature for operations in Europe where dedicated military air activities are cramped, notes Thomas Schmitt, EADS's program manager. The system would be fitted with sense-and-avoid technologies for such operations, in addition to the synthetic aperture radar and electro-optical/infrared payload for core surveillance roles.

Still, EADS hopes it can convince the governments of the need for an independent European air vehicle capability. The company argues that the three countries must pursue the project if they wish to retain long-term military aircraft design capacities. For the moment, the focus remains on France, Spain and Germany to avoid complicating negotiations, but eventually the project could expand to others, including Turkey.

Thales would have a big industrial role, too, says EADS, although Thales so far has suggested its involvement in the Talarion radar is not satisfactory. Wirtz says Thales would be a "major contributor" even beyond the radar.

Meanwhile, EADS has begun flight-testing core technologies for the eventual Talarion radar and is discussing splitting development work with Thales and Indra. Martin Pirkl, EADS's vice president for radar work, says that under the so-called Smart project to validate future technologies, EADS this year flew a mechanically scanned X-band ground surveillance radar. An electronically scanned version should fly late next year or in 2011, he says.

EADS sur le point de perdre un contrat de 2,9 milliards d'euros

PARIS (Reuters) - EADS est sur le point de perdre un contrat estimé à 2,9 milliards d'euros portant sur le développement d'un programme de drone de théâtre Male baptisé Talarion (ex-Advanced UAV) et l'achat des systèmes, écrit La Tribune vendredi.
Le quotidien explique que le groupe européen était favori pour équiper les armées française et allemande mais que, selon des "sources concordantes", ce projet est "hors de prix" et "trop risqué", d'autant que la loi de programmation militaire n'a prévu sur 2009-2014 que 139 millions d'euros pour le segment Male.
"Sauf revirement, Berlin et Paris prendront conjointement en février, en tout cas avant l'été, une décision et pourraient se lancer dans une solution alternative en y associant l'Espagne", ajoute La Tribune.
Selon le quotidien, le ministère de la Défense étudie trois autres solutions : l'achat de drones américains Predator, une offre conjointe de Dassault Aviation et Thales, ainsi qu'une éventuelle coopération entre Dassault Aviation et les Britanniques.

EADS pourrait geler son programme de drones Talarion /Presse

BERLIN, 18 janvier (Reuters) - Déjà confronté aux retards pris par son programme d'avion de transport militaire A400M, le groupe aéronautique EADS se pose à présent la question de l'avenir de son projet de drone Talarion.
Si l'Allemagne, la France et l'Espagne ne passent pas de commandes fermes pour le Talarion d'ici l'été, "nous devrons geler ce programme", a déclaré le responsable de la branche défense d'EADS Stefan Zoller au Financial Times Deutschland.
Jusqu'à cette période, EADS financera le développement de l'appareil, mais il s'attend à ce que les trois pays apportent ensuite la somme combinée de 1,5 milliard d'euros, hors coût d'acquisition de 1,4 milliard d'euros de 45 drones.

UPDATE 1-EADS relents on UAV spending deadline
* EADS relents on summer deadline for Talarion UAV decision
* Sees clarity over project's future by around end-year
* Ready for acquisitions where these amplify growth

PARIS, June 16 (Reuters) - EADS (EAD.PA) is prepared to keep spending its own cash on keeping the Talarion UAV project afloat till around the end of the year in order to give governments time to review their defence spending, a top executive said.
The European group had previously threatened to stop funding the roughly 3 billion euro drone project by summer if France, Germany and Spain did not decide whether to place an order.
Government decisions have been stalled by urgent reviews being carried out in several European countries over weapons spending in the light of the region's debt crisis.
"The project is on schedule. We have a preliminary design review coming up shortly and after that it would be good to have a commitment," Stefan Zoller, who heads the EADS Defence and Security division, told Reuters in an intervibew.
"But I am not blind to the fact that ... a firm political commitment will be difficult at short notice, so we will somehow shift to the right and continue to pre-finance Talarion."
EADS has so far spent around half a billion euros of its own cash on the medium altitude, long endurance drone project.
"All nations are reviewing their defence priorities so I would asume things will become clearer more towards the end of the year," Zoller said.
Asked how long EADS would keep funding studies, he said, "we won't continue forever but there is not a fixed deadline."
French Defence Minister Herve Morin said this week France was looking at buying Predator drones from the United States as a possible money-saving alternative to either Talarion or a second local option which is being developed in France.
France's Thales (TCFP.PA) and Dassault (AVMD.PA) are pushing an alternative to Talarion based on an Israeli platform, arguing this is more cost efective and more reliable to produce.
EADS argues it has the only genuinely European product, building up technology that would ultimately go into the next generation of fighters, which could well be unmanned.
"Once we are out of the technology we won't recover. We have to find ways to sustain this industry," Zoller said.
Germany announced sharp cuts in defence spending last week.
Industry analysts say Talarion may also have been delayed by worsening relations between EADS and Germany over a series of delays including helicopters and the Airbus A400M. Germany's defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg delivered a public snub to EADS by boycotting the Berlin air show last week.
EADS was created from a merger of French, German and Spanish interests a decade ago to compete with U.S. defence giants.
Zoller said the main priority for the EADS defence and security business lay in internally managed growth but he was open to acquisitions wherever these could "amplify" growth.
He identified India, Middle East and Brazil as the top three priority areas in emerging markets. EADS has also said it plans to expand in defence services in the United States.

Allemagne/L'aéronautique militaire en péril / EADS dans le SDSZ

FRANCFORT, 31 octobre (Reuters) - L'avenir de l'industrie aéronautique militaire allemande serait compromis si le projet de drone Talarian était abandonné, estime un responsagble d'EADS (EAD.PA: Cotation)(EAD.DE: Cotation).

Stefan Zoller, patron de la division militaire Cassidian du groupe européen d'aéronautique et de défense, a dit que celle-ci avait déjà investi le tiers des 1,5 milliard d'euros des coûts de développement estimés et ne pouvait continuer ainsi sans commande.

"C'est un projet stratégique pionnier pour l'ensemble de l'industrie... Sans lui, on n'a plus besoin de tout ce qui vient derrière, électronique, radar et ainsi de suite", dit-il dans un entretien publié par le Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

"En définitive, l'existence de tout un secteur représentant des milliers d'emplois en dépend. Cassidian à elle seule emploie près de 30.000 personnes dans le monde entier, dont beaucoup en Allemagne".

Cette compétence technologique, si elle n'était pas employée, serait perdue à jamais, ce qui aurait des implications de grande ampleur pour l'Europe si elle devenait soudain dépendante de l'étranger pour sa sécurité, a poursuivi Stefan Zoller.

"Si nous ne réalisons pas Talarion dans un avenir prévisible, la construction d'avions militaires n'aura plus d'avenir en Allemagne", conclut-il.

L'Allemagne veut réaliser 80 milliards d'euros d'économies budgétaires dans les quatre ans à venir et des membres de la coalition au pouvoir estiment que les coupes dans le budget militaire pourraient à elles seules représenter 13 milliards d'euros d'économies.