Selex Galileo flies AESA radar on UAV

[Myth_buster_1]

Defencenews

Selex Galileo has test flown its Picosar active electronically scanned radar on its Falco UAV, the company said September 8.

The Picosar, which offers Synthetic Aperture Radar and Ground Moving Tracking Indicator functions, was flown in combined payload including a Electro-Optical and Infra-Red sensor, said Selex, which is a unit of Italy’s Finmeccanica.

Flights took place at Selex Galileo’s UAV facility in Wales and at the test site in Finland owned by catapault producer Robonic.

During the trials, Selex also undertook catapault launches and automatic landings of the UAV, while testing its latest ground control station, undertaking the hand over of control of the UAV from one ground station to another.

 

[PakShaheen79]

Which radar Pakistani Falco uses?

How good it is against ground target to be identified.

 

[bigmoneymaker]

every country is making uav, but who is the one to laugh to the end?? the small countries like those in se asia and the rest of world cant be so sophisticated, so it must be the big country with huge talented human and natural resources in long term r and d, so now as the time passes all this will be revealed and whole picture got..italy is embarassing itself after all, look at its sunset industry although relatively advanced, poor clown dancing around with big competitive ones...end of briefing

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

SELEX Galileo’s Falco UAV Confirms its Multiple Payload Operational Capability​

​

London, UK - By flying the PicoSAR AESA radar combined with an EO system
(WAPA) - "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.

The industry 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".

(Avionews)

Avionews

 

[MastanKhan]

every country is making uav, but who is the one to laugh to the end?? the small countries like those in se asia and the rest of world cant be so sophisticated, so it must be the big country with huge talented human and natural resources in long term r and d, so now as the time passes all this will be revealed and whole picture got..italy is embarassing itself after all, look at its sunset industry although relatively advanced, poor clown dancing around with big competitive ones...end of briefing

Hi,

Could you please describe it in plain english what you want to say about italian products and industry---if there is a joke, then we all would like to laugh at it. Thanks.

 

[sudhir007]

How many drone pak. acquire from Italy

 

[deathfromabove]

How many drone pak. acquire from Italy

September 09, 2009: Pakistan has started manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drone, in collaboration with Selex Galileo of Italy which claims to lead the unmanned aerial systems market. A ceremony marking the launch of the project was held at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) yesterday. Falco, the UAV to be manufactured under the project, is designed by the Italian firm. The aircraft will address surveillance and reconnaissance needs of Pakistan Air Force (PAF).

The PAF officials said the UAV co-production facility was a major step towards the long-term goal of self-reliance in military aviation industry, adding that establishment of manufacturing unit was a challenging task that required total dedication. They said the Falco would greatly enhance PAF’s operational capability. The roll-out of the first Falco UAV at the PAC is scheduled in the near future.

 

[nightcrawler]

From the look of its airframe it is quiet unlikely that it can carry missiles of some sort. Its size is quiet smaller to serve as combat vehicle also I must say that the biplane structure renders very difficulty in the loiter or its maneuver over specified targets

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

From the look of its airframe it is quiet unlikely that it can carry missiles of some sort. Its size is quiet smaller to serve as combat vehicle also I must say that the biplane structure renders very difficulty in the loiter or its maneuver over specified targets

i dont know about hardpoints. I don't see this UAV serving attack role. We did however sign MoU with Turkey on joint-production of armed drones. I am hoping that despite some recent tension, Turkey maintains military contact with israelis, so that at some point they can get ToT of some sort (ideal, but doubtful)

The Galileo will be used solely for border patrol enforcement purposes and aerial photo/video reccon.

Pakistan also has a large UAV industry, with many prototypes and in production UAVs. I hope they will be proactive and increase the capabilities and range of their products. There is no reason why we can't do this work ourselves.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

How many drone pak. acquire from Italy

they're setting up facility in Pakistan, for local production.

same goes with Italian MBDA Spada 2000 air defence system - maintenance and missile production facility.

Italians have proven to be reliable partners I would say.

 

[gambit]

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.

PicoSAR is NOT some new type of radar but only a brand name, like Coca Cola, a blend of soda water and some unique ingredients, or Pepsi, another variant of the same family of soft drinks. The system is possible by exploiting the superiority of an AESA array, coupling it to a synthetic aperature algorigthm computer and finally packaging it to a portable system that can be installed in a wide variety of airframes. The heart of the system is the SAR computer, not the AESA array. A SAR computer can use data from any type of antenna array, just that an AESA array is the best. I said many times before and I will repeat: An antenna is NOT the array, the antenna contains the array. The manufacturer can configure the SAR computer to use only AESA array data if so desired and given the clear superiority of AESA technology, it would be foolish to use anything else, really.

www.selex-sas.com/EN/Common/files/SelexSAS_UK/pdf_datasheet/radar/PicoSAR.pdf
www.selex-sas.com/EN/Common/files/SelexSAS_UK/pdf_datasheet/radar/picosar2.pdf

As we can see from the system's datasheet, the system uses the common X-band...

Radar Frequency Bands

X 8-12 GHz. Short-range tracking, missile guidance, mapping, marine radar, airborne intercept

This entire system, UAV and radar, seems to be ideally suited for small area surveillance, not volume search. To 'surveil' means to know the area and is monitoring the area for any type of changes. The UAV is limited to 6500 meter altitude, but more like 5000 meters, for the sake of maintaining radar resolution, making the aircraft somewhat vulnerable to SAMs.

http://www.uvs-international.org/pdfs/brochures/gaav_uav_falco.pdf

max operating altitude 6500 m

Given the small size of the radar system in particular, the array's scan limit of 45 deg is to be expected, same for the 20 km distance range and 1 meter resolution. I would expect best usage to be around 15-18 km, 20 km is pushing the resolution limit if there is something critical to know, like -- What is going on across the border?

This aircraft is really too small and underpowered to do anything beyond surveillance. May be it can carry chaff/flare dispensers for evasive maneuvers, but highly doubtful if the aircraft itself has any more room internally for weapons computer systems.