The new drones are to provide autonomous reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, and fulfill missions such as surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and the protection of bases, ports, critical facilities and high-value surface assets.
After completing acceptance tests, the drone, along with mobile control terminals and spare parts, will be deployed at the Ukrainian Navy’s 10th Naval Aviation Brigade in Mykolaiv.
The Eurodrone project to build a twin-turboprop aircraft —in both an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance version and a battlefield version — aims to wean Europe off its reliance on U.S. and Israeli UAVs.
Vanilla Unmanned, a small business that was featured in an April naval drill, promises “world-record endurance, unmatched payload, and then a disruptive cost profile" in its Group 3 UAV that it hopes will change how the Navy thinks about unmanned aircraft.
No sooner had it arrived, one of the five unmanned aircraft headed to California to be equipped with the so-called GMTI-over-Sea capability, giving it the ability to track moving maritime targets as well as moving land targets.
Victory in the next major conflict could very well depend on the effectiveness of drones — from their swarm capabilities to their surveillance and artificial intelligence technologies.