The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has awarded Austrian Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) developer Schiebel a three-year extension contract to maintain the service’s fleet of S-100 Camcopter rotorcraft.
The company stated in a statement on July 26 that the new contract will enable RAN to continue to develop operational concepts and use S-100 to test UAS operations.
The contract covers on-site support services, engineering and logistics services, and the introduction of training capabilities for RAN requirements.
The Australian Department of Defense (DoD) selected the S-100 Camcopter UAS in 2016 for evaluation and experimentation under the RAN Naval Small Project (NMP) 1942 program.
The service subsequently commissioned a new unit 822X squadron in Nowra in October 2018 to obtain operational experience of maritime UAS in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, and to operate a Boeing aircraft equipped with S2 heavy-duty fuel engines and fixed-wing aircraft. Bit scan eagle.
NMP 1942 is designed to equip this service with temporary shipborne vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAS for testing. Its long-term goal is to deploy mature UAS capabilities for its current and future naval surface combatants, such as Anzac-class frigates and Hobart-class air combat. Destroyers, and future Arafura-class offshore patrol vessels (OPV) and Hunter-class frigates-in Phase 5 of the Sea129 project.
The maximum take-off weight of the S-100 Camcopter is 200 kg, and the typical payload including fuel and sensors is 50 kg. It can run for up to 6 hours and has a maximum range of approximately 200 kilometers, although the battery life can be extended with an external fuel tank.
Other known S-100 UAV customers in the Asia-Pacific region include Malaysia, South Korea, and most recently Thailand. Schiebel announced in November 2019 that it had won a competitive tender to supply an undisclosed number of S-100 platforms to the Royal Thai Navy (RTN), noting that these aircraft will be deployed by RTN for shore-based and ship-based ISR operations.
