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The Denel Overberg Test Range this week successfully tested a new type of aircraft that will aid the development of future unmanned aerial vehicles for series production.
The unmanned jet-propelled demonstrator with the project name Sagitta flew completely autonomously for around seven minutes over the test site in Overberg, South Africa, on a preprogrammed course.
The testing facility is weapons systems in the Overberg region on the south coast of South Africa, near Arniston, Western Cape. It includes launch pads and tracking systems, tracking radar, optical missile tracking systems, and cine-theodolites. It is also the home of the South African Air Force Test Flight and Development Centre largely for Overberg Air Force Base.
It was used to test the RSA series of Israeli-South African missiles until cancellation in 1992. Since then, it has been used by a variety of countries and clients.
The demonstration this week was the product of the Open Innovation / Sagitta national initiative launched by Airbus Defence and Space in 2010. The project saw Airbus working together with institutes from the technical universities of Munich and Chemnitz, the University of the Federal Armed Forces (Universität der Bundeswehr) in Munich, the Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences and the German Aerospace Centre DLR to jointly develop advanced technologies for unmanned flight.
“With Sagitta’s first flight, we have proved just how successful a cooperation between industry and academic partners can be in the area of basic research,” said Grazia Vittadini, Head of Engineering at Airbus Defence and Space.
“We are increasingly shifting our focus towards these kinds of innovative concepts, in particular for the development of UAVs, so that we can develop products quickly and efficiently for a growing market.”
The project started with a feasibility study of the flying-wing configuration. The innovative flying-wing construction demonstrated excellent flight characteristics during the test. This flight also marked the successful completion of the first test phase, which also comprised an extensive series of ground tests.
Criteria for the design included a high degree of autonomy, variable mission profiles and low levels of perceptibility. To achieve this, the interinstitutional research team adopted approaches from academic and industrial research, developed these further and incorporated them into solutions for industrial application. Airbus facilitated the continuous exchange between experts, doctoral students and developers during the development stage. In addition, the company provided the industrial facilities required for integrating the technologies in the demonstrator at Airbus Defence and Space’s Military Air Systems Centre in Manching, Germany.
The Overberg facility has served a number of foreign clients, including:
•Germany for testing Exocet, Sea Sparrow, Taurus[5] and IRIS-T[6] missiles
•Singapore for testing Igla missiles[7]
•The UK for evaluation of the Denel Rooivalk helicopter
•Sweden for testing the RBS15 MK3[8] and CAMPS[9]
•Spain for integration of the Taurus missile on the F-18.
•The Turkish Navy held a live fire exercise in May 2014 during which two frigates and a corvette fired various missiles and guns.
