European nEUROn UCAV project under way

Everyone wants to fight but not get killed, so flavour of the month when making toys for the boys, is unmanned vehicles, aerial, land or water based either remotely controlled or robotic.

Benefits over manned vehicles include :

1 Reduction or elimination of the risk of (highly trained) pilot loss
2 Lighter and more fuel-efficient platforms, leading to lower costs and less environmental damage and Significantly longer mission time and range than manned aircraft
3 Greater cost-efficiency than equivalent manned aircraft
4 Potential for higher flight performance than manned aircraft

The French Armed forces have been pursuing the Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) for some time and made initial announcements at the 2003 Paris Airshow.

Dassault have now been awarded (by France's DGA procurement agency) a USD$486 Mn contract which will co-0rdinate a European 6 nation programme to design, build and fly an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) technology demonstrator.

The aircraft will have unmanned autonomous air-to-ground attack capabilities with precision-guided munitions, relying on an advanced stealth airframe design that reduces radar and infared cross-sections to penetrate undetected at a speed of about Mach 0.8.The project will also examine the ability to control UCAV swarm flight in automatic mode from an advanced fighter like the Dassault Rafale or JAS-39 Gripen,

Based on the French 6,000 Kg nEUROn project vehicle it will co-ordinate efforts with European partners Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland shared by Alenia Aeronautica, Dassault, EADS Casa, Hellenic Aerospace Industry, Ruag Aerospace, Saab and Thales. Chief project manager Thierry Prunier is from Dassault Aviation, deputy project managers are Mats Ohlson of Saab and Ermanno Bertolina of Alenia.(Saab brochure here)

Saab's Filur vehicle had a 10min maiden flight, which took place from the Vidsel test range on 10 October 2005. Further tests are to follow to test the low radar cross-section design to conduct a mission without being detected by air-defence radars. (see pic)

The French have contributed USD$185 Mn and Sweden is next biggest contributor with USD$100 Mn.

Flight tests are rumoured for 2010 (2012 ?) with 2 x 250 Kg bombs but please do not hold your breath.

nEUROn is envisoned as a competitive system with the American J-UCAS program's Boeing X-45C or Northrop-Grumman X-47B. The project is of course a method of keeping design teams together in Europe now that the Typhoon, Rafaele and Gripen fighters are approaching production. BAE / RAF with the hopeless Corax project do not of course figure on the nEUROn program.

More information from Flight here and here

Dassault Aerospace - nEUROn
Dassault Aerospace - The official Neuron trailer

AFCEA Signal Magazine (September 2005) - Neuron Gains Altitude. Excellent article.