Blade Arrow – armed loitering UAV

Blade Arrow – armed loitering UAV

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

UVISION is among the presenters at the upcoming Autonomous Unmanned Systems & Robotics Expo on November 25-26 2014

Blade Arrow. Image: courtesy of UNIVISION.
Blade Arrow. Image: courtesy of UVISION.

It would seem that preventing almost any risk to human lives is one of the major advantages of “suicide UAVs”. Unlike manned fighter jets or helicopters, complete with navigators, engineers and so on, deployed in the framework of reconnaissance, intelligence and even airstrike missions, the major advantage of a Precision Attack Munition (PAM) such as Blade Arrow is that it can be very cost-effective.

The newly developed Blade Arrow is an unmanned aircraft, or Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), which hovers over the target it is capable of acquiring independently, using its dedicated payload of electro-optic devices. This UAS independently navigates using GPS and launches small warheads at both mobile and fixed targets. It is designed primarily for attacking high quality targets, urban warfare and counter-terror operations.

“The west is beginning to grasp the full operational potential of the new, classified field of loitering and armed UASs,”says UNIVISION CEO Yair Dubester, whose company develops and manufactures these systems. “This is a new field, with a great deal of future”.

UNIVISION CEO Yair Dubester will be among the speakers at the upcoming iHLS Autonomous Unmanned Systems & Robotics Expo on November 25-26 at Rishon LeZion.

Unmanned systems conference 2014 – Israel

AUS&R ban_ 960x300

Dubester is unable to discusses UNIVISION’s loitering PAM projects, but he was willing to say a recent model, called Wasp, was recently completed, and marketing is set to begin soon, by the end of 2014. We developed Wasp in cooperation with the Chief Scientists at the Ministry of Economy. This is a small, electrically-powered UAV, weighing 3kg, designed to serve as firefighter’s eyes at the scene. One firefighter or a team can launch it, and receive real-time imagery night and day. This will show them where the fire is and what is its direction. “This is a cost-effective, light system, featuring an advanced day and night stabilized camera weighing a mere 200gr, FLIR equipment and Infra-Red. All this amounts to the level of a firefighter’s almost personal gear. It is highly versatile.”

Dubester will speak on Israel’s leadership in the field at the upcoming iHLS Autonomous Unmanned Systems & Robotics Expo on November 25-26 at Rishon LeZion. With over 40 years of experience in working on UASs and UAVs in various leading companies, Dubesrter lists the primary reasons for Israel’s supremacy in the UAS sector:

  • Operational requirement: in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Israel’s Air Force clearly specified its requirements, so the local industries could commence development projects from then on.
  • Available customer – IAF.
  • Budgetary constraints. As always in Israel, the local defense industries focused on gradual, step-by-step studies of battle-tested systems. But elsewhere, in the US, Western Europe and Eastern Europe, companies lagged behind in terms of UAS development, so Israel has become a leading powerhouse of UAV on a global scale.