DCNS and Thales to Design and Demonstrate UAV Deck Landing System

PARIS --- The French defence procurement agency (DGA) has awarded DCNS and Thales an advanced study contract for a deck landing system for unmanned aerial vehicles. The three-year contract calls for the design and demonstration of an automatic take-off, landing and deck landing system for rotorcraft UAVs.>> The system will be a vital component of future tactical UAV programmes, notably for the French Navy and the French Army.>> The project aims to provide reproducible, risk-controlled demonstrations of deck take-offs and landings with the required discretion in a range of environmental, weather and sea state conditions, as needed for fully autonomous UAV operation. Initial landing tests are scheduled for 2009 with a view to demonstrating fully autonomous deck landing in high sea states on a French Navy frigate in 2011.>> DCNS and Thales have combined their expertise and experience for this project and will develop the system under a co-contracting agreement. Thales is responsible for the landing system, the UAV system and the trajectory control system. DCNS is responsible for ship motion prediction, the deck landing strategy and for securing the UAV to the flight deck.>> DCNS will draw on its experience in flight deck operations and the naval UAV integration study contract it won in 2005. In October this year, DCNS demonstrated its know-how in this area when it automatically recovered a lightweight rotorcraft UAV on the flight deck of a French frigate off Toulon. The DCNS subsidiary Sirehna also has proven expertise in ship motion prediction.