Page 16 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2019

UMS SKELDAR
DEFENCE BUSINESS
AVALON
“One example is using drone technology for explosive ordnance disposal, experimenting with
COTS platforms.”
The Skeldar V-200 offers native integration with Saab’s CMS.
table as an attrition aircraft, although a de- cision on further platforms awaits the next White Paper.
“We’ve committed to six, but we’ll be looking at attrition aircraft later,” GP- CAPT Lind said. “If another White Paper were to come out then maybe it would be a different decision, but for now it is six with the attrition aircraft question down the track. That’s the government’s prerogative.”
itary teams. They aren’t military people try- ing to do drone racing – they’re actual drone racers who are in the military. They’re trying to push as hard as we are, and they’re fast.”
ADM took the opportunity to catch up with self-described UAS fanatic LTCOL Keirin Joyce about progress on the vari- ous small platforms currently rolled out across Army.
“Phantom is going really well,” LTCOL Joyce said. “Units are already staffing capability proposals to us about things they’ve experi-
mented with.
“One example is using drone
technology for explosive ord- nance disposal. One of the op- tions we’re going to experiment with is using a commercial off-the-shelf drone with a com- mercial off-the-shelf fishing kit and a commercial detonation device to completely remove
the human from that activity.”
LTCOL Joyce also updated ADM on the
Shadow 200 replacement.
“Shadow’s replacement project is run-
ning,” LTCOL Joyce said. “We’re going through Gate 1 approvals right now. We’ve just delivered an industry briefing – we’re going to increase the capability from two to three operating batteries, we’re going to
ask for more advanced payloads. That’s why we’re learning about synthetic aperture ra- dar, multi-spectral, EW, and photogram- metry over the last year.
“We also want a solution that is runway-in- dependent. We’re working towards support- ing an amphibious task group as well, so we want to get to a point where we can launch and recover from our amphibious ships.”
RAN representatives on Sea 129 Phase 5 addressed the maritime tactical UAS (MTUAS) capability in an industry brief- ing. Specifications included a fully-contai- nerised solution that ‘may’ involve target- ing and EW capabilities. The project team is not constrained to a staged acquisition or to a single platform, but is considering a capability partner approach that would see industry fully integrate the platform onto both the OPVs and possibly RAN’s large surface combatants in what could be a 20 to 30-year relationship.
RAN’s emphasis on a solution that can fully integrate onto ships with minimal fuss, however, raises the issue of how to cre- ate competitive tension. As Saab is responsi- ble for combat management system (CMS) tactical interfaces on numerous RAN ships, including the Hunter-class, any MTUAS platform that is not the Skeldar V-200 (developed by Saab) may carry additional costs and risks.
Small drones
Small drones were also on show with Army’s Drone Racing Team back for a re- match against the Kiwi team and current civilian world champions, Australian teen- agers Rudi Browning and Tom Bitmatta.
“Just having [Army] backing us from a community standpoint – it’s mind-bog- gling,” Bitmatta said. “We’ve got proper mil-
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