XYON
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epool, our UQAB UAV has optical sensors. you could see optical sensors being introduced to our UAV platforms, after the induction of the Falco UAV. I seriously doubt your claim of multi-million dollar investment, not even NESCOM would spend that much money on UAV's, it would be hard for them to spend that much even on air-launched Raad. to totally brush that assumption aside, UQAB wasn't even a govt. project to begin with. it was a tender released by our govt. for an indigenously built UAV, with several companies competing; IDS, ACES, and Albadeey. ACES, a privately-owned company won that tender with their Eagle-Eye platform.
as for the babur cruise missile, there is no doubt, the cruise missile relies on TERCOM. the difference between the Babur and the block III tomahawk that fell into our areas, is that the tomahawk at that time used TERCOM along with GPS updates, and the Babur cruise missile relies on a multi-navigational system using GPS updates, INS, and TERCOM. It's quite similar to the chinese navigation systems for their cruise missiles, and the reason for that is because we weren't fully able to comprehend and absorb TERCOM technology back in '98.
The current block of tomahawks use a combination of GPS updates the DSMAC-digital TERCOM-which is more accurate and precise. Babur cruise missiles cannot rely only on GPS updates, otherwise it can't fly low enough to be considered a terrain-hugging missile. If our cruise missiles were only using GPS, they would crash into mountains or buildings in the way. We would need to update their flight controls during flight to change altitude to avoid obstacles, which would require communication and navigation satellites we don't have.
ACES is NOT privately owned! UQAB or Eagle Eye is developed by the GoP! Enough Said!
The multi-million dollar investment was made by the Army into PMO UAV Complex starting from 2001! Army pulled the plug on PMO UAV program due to non-performance in 2007 but then Gen Kiyani gave them a fresh lease of life after seeing the demo of UQAB last year. However, PMO is still on its own to sell UQAB because neither the Army or the Air Force has officially bought it yet!
FALCO is a Italian made platform by Selex-Galileo Avionica. This contract was placed in 2006 for development of 12 bird system by PAF. The sensors installed on FALCO are from Galileo and NOT Pakistan.
Lastly, you may be correct regarding the terrain-conformance ability being used in conjunction with GPS guidance in the cruise missiles though!