Award Under Canada’s IDEaS Programme
Ultra Maritime and UMS Skeldar have been awarded a 2nd-phase contract under the Canadian Department of National Defence’s Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) programme, to explore development of a rotary-wing UAS to provide an ASW sonobuoy-dispensing capability, based on the Skeldar V-200 UAS.
This innovative programme will review how a medium-sized UAS can be used to deploy sonobuoys to track potentially hostile submarines that could pose a threat to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) or other forces. Andrew Anderson, Chief Technology Officer, Ultra Sonar Systems, explains. “We are constantly reviewing new technologies to determine how they can be used to tackle the threat from hostile submarines. The scope of this programme is to evaluate the technical and operational feasibility of deploying sonobuoys from a Class II rotary-wing UAS, to provide the warfighter with another tool in the ASW toolbox.”
“Using rotary unmanned aircraft systems to help conduct ASW will provide many benefits, not least enabling rapid deployment capabilities, a smaller logistical footprint on Canadian Armed Forces ships and a cost-effective alternative to current methods […] Our Skeldar V-200 platform is a prime example of this, with a capability of completing remote automatic flights, exceeding six-hour flight times thanks to the robust heavy-fuel engine and the ability to provide a high degree of maintainability and minimum turn-around times. These credentials we believe are the perfect fit for this programme,” added Richard Hjelmberg, VP Business Development for UMS Skeldar.
