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17 Jan 25. Baykar’s Kalkan VTOL Offers Operational Range Over 100 Km. On January 10, 2025, Baykar released a video announcing the successful completion of the 54th test flight of its KALKAN VTOL drone. This milestone marks a step in the development of its long-range communication capabilities, exceeding 100 km. Designed to meet the growing demands of military and civilian operations, its demonstrates notable performance in terms of altitude and flight endurance, reinforcing its position within the unmanned aerial systems (UAS) domain. Baykar, recognized for its expertise in drone manufacturing, continues to advance this technology to address modern operational requirements. The primary goal of this specific test was to assess the on-board long-range communication systems. These systems are essential for missions requiring precise coordination and real-time feedback, particularly in environments where natural or artificial obstacles can hinder traditional signal transmission. The results of this flight confirm the current capabilities of the KALKAN VTOL and pave the way for further technological advancements. The Bayraktar KALKAN VTOL, a Mini Tactical UAV-class drone developed by Baykar, is specifically designed for reconnaissance and intelligence missions. Featuring a semi-autonomous architecture, it is capable of performing autonomous flights, including take-off, landing, and navigation. With a 3 kg payload capacity, the KALKAN is equipped with advanced sensors such as electro-optical and infrared cameras, a laser rangefinder, and a laser designator, enabling effective day and night surveillance. The drone operates at a service altitude of up to 8,000 feet, with a six-hour endurance and a 100-kilometer communication range, while also achieving a maximum ceiling of 14,000 feet. Its hybrid propulsion system combines four electric motors for vertical take-off with a combustion engine for cruise flight, ensuring optimized energy efficiency. With a 5-meter wingspan and a maximum take-off weight of 75 kg, the KALKAN is designed for versatility and reliability. It features various landing options, including parachute landing, and benefits from redundant systems that enhance operational dependability. These characteristics make it a strategic tool for complex environments. VTOL drones are characterized by their ability to take off and land vertically, like a helicopter, while maintaining the horizontal flight efficiency of a fixed-wing aircraft. This versatility allows them to operate in confined spaces without requiring a runway while covering wide areas thanks to extended endurance. Their capability to alternate between hovering and rapid movement makes them particularly suitable for missions such as surveillance, mapping, infrastructure inspection, and cargo delivery. The Bayraktar KALKAN VTOL stands out for its hybrid design and advanced features, placing it in a competitive position within the VTOL drone market. Compared to other VTOL drones, it offers a compelling combination of versatility and efficiency, supported by its hybrid propulsion system that integrates four electric motors for vertical operations and a combustion engine for cruising. This design optimizes its six-hour endurance and 100 km operational range, critical for reconnaissance and intelligence missions in challenging environments.
In comparison to competing models such as those from JOUAV or Wingtra, which also focus on civilian and military applications, the KALKAN adopts a modular approach by incorporating advanced sensors like electro-optical and infrared cameras, a laser rangefinder, and a laser designator. With its 3 kg payload capacity and 14,000-foot service ceiling, it is well-suited for mid-range tactical missions. While competitors like the WingtraOne specialize in mapping capabilities and larger systems like Northrop Grumman’s Firebird address strategic-scale operations, the KALKAN appeals to users seeking a balance between performance, flexibility, and cost efficiency. Numerous companies have made contributions to VTOL drone technologies. Among them, the French company Innotech-Drone has developed models like the Skycross-2400 and Skycross-3400, designed for topographic and surveillance missions. Additionally, companies such as ASY and JOUAV are recognized for their innovative VTOL drones, which serve diverse sectors including agriculture, public safety, and military operations. These drones are utilized by governmental organizations, private enterprises, and research institutions, reflecting their growing relevance in applications that demand operational flexibility and efficiency. (Source: UAS VISION/Army Recognition)
16 Jan 25. Next-Gen Multi-Mission Maritime Vessels from Textron. Textron Systems introduces the TSUNAMI family of autonomous maritime surface vessels, offering versatile, cost-effective solutions for the U.S. Department of Defense and allied forces. Textron Systems Corporation has unveiled its TSUNAMI™ series of autonomous maritime surface vessels, designed to provide the U.S. Department of Defense and allied nations with a cost-effective, versatile fleet of uncrewed, multi-mission assets. These maritime surface vessels are purpose-built to seamlessly integrate across existing naval operations, leveraging Textron Systems’ extensive 40+ years of expertise in multi-domain autonomy and the advanced manufacturing capabilities of the U.S. commercial shipbuilding sector. Designed with gasoline-powered engines to optimize logistics, maintenance, and cost-efficiency, the TSUNAMI vessels boast a payload capacity of 1,000 pounds (453.6 kilograms). The lineup currently includes 24-, 25-, and 28-foot hull variants, all in large-scale production today. These vessels operate effectively up to Sea State 4, with ranges spanning 600 to 1,000 nautical miles and beyond, while offering scalability for future configurations and higher production volumes. The TSUNAMI vessels also feature standard equipment including EO/IR camera, maritime radar, and LOS/BLOS communications, Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture (UMAA) compatibility, and a proven autonomy system based on DoD programs.
David Phillips, Senior Vice President of Air, Land, and Sea Systems at Textron Systems, said, “Textron Systems understands how to design, integrate, field and support autonomous systems across the air, land and sea domains, because we are unique in having done that. Combining this expertise with the capability, demonstrated capacity, and affordability of Brunswick’s commercial shipbuilding know-how allows us to provide our DoD and allied customers with powerful maritime force strength at speed and at scale.” (Source: https://www.defenseadvancement.com/)
16 Jan 25. China Unveils New Classes of Hypersonic Drones. Footage showing the testing of new classes of Chinese hypersonic drones has shed new light on the country’s efforts to modernise its unmanned surveillance capabilities. The aircraft in question appear to be further developments of the MD-22 hypersonic testbed first unveiled in 2022, and are marked MD-19, MD-21, and MD-2. All the aircraft have the same general layout as the MD-22, with commonalities including their wedge-shaped main fuselages, delta wings, and twin canted vertical tails. The drones are expected to be launched from other aircraft, including H-6M carriers, for surveillance flights into well defended enemy territory, which makes their extreme altitudes and hypersonic speeds important to increase survivability. This mirrors U.S. and Soviet development of the SR-71 and MiG-25R/RB Mach 3+ surveillance aircraft during the Cold War which proved to be highly survivable in their time. China has since pulled ahead to currently field the world’s only known hypersonic aircraft. Pentagon files publicised on April 19, 2023 revealed that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had “almost certainly” operationalised the world’s first hypersonic military aircraft the WZ-8 surveillance drone. The aircraft were deployed in western Anhui province under the Eastern Theatre Command, positioning them to respond to contingencies either in the Taiwan Strait or on the Korean Peninsul. China’s lead over competitors in gaining operational experience is expected to help inform future investments in fielding such platforms, with the WZ-8 likely to have multiple successors potentially with a wider range of roles. While surveillance satellites have predictable courses allowing them to be evaded, and expected to be primary targets in the event of open hostilities between major powers, reconnaissance aircraft are much more difficult to locate, can be hidden in underground hangars, and can fly along unexpected trajectories towards their targets. This allows such aircraft to provide a valuable secondary high altitude reconnaissance capability in the event of a conflict between major powers. (Source: UAS VISION/Force Index)
15 Jan 25. Palladyne AI Corp. (NASDAQ: PDYN and PDYNW) (“Palladyne AI”), a developer of artificial intelligence software for robotic platforms in the defense and commercial sectors, and Red Cat Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: RCAT) (“Red Cat”), a drone technology company integrating robotic hardware and software for military, government, and commercial operations, today announced the completion of the first successful flight in which multiple Teal drones equipped with Palladyne™ Pilot AI software autonomously collaborated to identify, prioritize, and track objects of interest on the ground. The flight demonstrates how the Palladyne Pilot AI software leverages sensor management and platform collaboration to enable a flight of two or more drones to autonomously collaborate and share multi-modal sensor information under constrained communication between drones. This follows Palladyne AI’s announcement in December 2024 that it had successfully demonstrated a single drone’s ability to interface with a small drone’s autopilot system using Palladyne Pilot to autonomously identify, prioritize, and track terrestrial targets.
“The successful integration of Palladyne Pilot AI software into Teal drones to enable multi-drone autonomous collaboration is an important milestone in the partnership we announced with Red Cat last summer” “Enabling multiple Teal and Black Widow drones to synthesize and share multi-modal sensor fusion information in real-time will dramatically improve situational awareness in the field,” said Geoff Hitchcock, Chief Revenue Officer, Red Cat Holdings, Inc. “Even more compelling is the ability to translate that shared information into autonomous navigation, enabling a single operator to manage multiple drones with a substantially reduced cognitive load and in operational environments with limited connectivity. We look forward to engaging with our customers to showcase the value of this groundbreaking joint-solution.”
“The successful integration of Palladyne Pilot AI software into Teal drones to enable multi-drone autonomous collaboration is an important milestone in the partnership we announced with Red Cat last summer,” said Matt Vogt, Chief Revenue Officer, Palladyne AI Corp. “We believe the force multiplier effect resulting from the autonomous collaboration capability of multiple drones will provide a substantial tactical advantage to the warfighter in the field.”
Palladyne AI currently expects Palladyne Pilot software to be commercially available by the end of the first quarter of 2025. For more information, please visit www.palladyneai.com. (Source: BUSINESS WIRE)
14 Jan 25. The Pentagon’s ‘Replicator’ drone bonanza faces an uncertain future. In a speech last August, Kathleen Hicks listed the two most common questions about Replicator, her two-year pledge to buy thousands of drones and help the U.S. military compete with China.
“When we launched Replicator, a common refrain I heard was: ‘Can it work?’ These days I’m more likely to hear: ‘Will it stick?’” said Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense.
That second question soon won’t be hers to answer.
Since she first unveiled Replicator a year and a half ago, it’s nearly become a trademark. Hicks has sat in all of the Pentagon’s major meetings on it. She’s read every story published about the program, prepared in files from her staff. And she’s called its success a referendum on her leadership.
Senior Pentagon officials interviewed for this story said the program is on schedule largely through her effort. Now, as Hicks leaves office, the question is whether it can survive without her.
Republicans and Democrats have applauded the idea behind Replicator. To compete with China, they argue, the Pentagon needs cutting-edge weapons much faster. Hence, aides in Congress and executives at drone firms said they expect it to endure — albeit with changes.
And after 16 months, many officials working on the program outside the Pentagon say the biggest change it needs is size. Hicks made the bet to start Replicator, no small feat in a risk-averse bureaucracy, they acknowledged. But without more funding and more weapons on order, it won’t reach its true promise: a military nimble enough for the future of war.
“I would like to think that years from now, we would look back and say, ‘Yes, this began with the Biden administration,” said Chris Brose, an executive at the drone and software firm Anduril. “However, the real scale that this got to was delivered by his successors.”
‘Magnitude’
By early 2023, the problem was clear.
The year before, Russia had started a war with Ukraine dominated by trench warfare, artillery and increasingly drones. Both sides were building them in huge numbers to target, spy and attack at once, known in the military as “swarms.”
But these weren’t American drones. Instead, Ukraine’s soldiers were mostly buying and then tweaking their weapons from DJI, a Chinese company controlling 90% of the consumer market. U.S. firms weren’t only behind on building the weapons; their equipment wasn’t even needed.
“We know we have a problem on the production side: that DJI has just taken off with the international market. We needed to build out — we still do need to build out — that American industry,” Hicks said in an interview.
The deputy is close to the ultimate Pentagon insider. She took her first job in the building at the age of 23. And her habits reflect its culture of productivity. Hicks regularly schedules her day in 15-minute slots, she reads books on better managing her time and she returns hundreds of pages of reading to her staff each week marked with detailed notes.
So as the problem emerged, Hicks thought about how the Pentagon, internally, could solve it. American companies were indeed making high-tech drones. But the supply was small — in large part because the Pentagon was a picky customer. The period between signing a contract and actually getting equipment to troops often lasts more than 10 years.
The issue wasn’t just for Ukraine.
Hicks had entered office saying her top challenge was China, a country so large it could outpace America’s ability to build almost anything.
“It was the magnitude of all of the things,” said Mike Horowitz, a former top Pentagon policy official involved in Replicator, who listed out China’s ability to build a range of weapons: ships, submarines, drones, missiles. “They’re doing all of them simultaneously.”
Over the course of 2023, Hicks had been visiting Indo-Pacific Command, which oversees U.S. forces across the region, to watch troops experiment and exercise with new technology. She saw the need for more weapons that could punch above their weight. And she decided that if the Pentagon wasn’t buying enough of these already, she would make it.
In August that year, she took to the stage at a conference in downtown Washington and pledged two things. The Pentagon would field thousands of affordable drones within two years. And it would learn how to buy such weapons faster along the way.
Hicks called the two-part program Replicator, named after a gun from Star Trek that can form matter from thin air.
‘WD-40′
At first, other people in the Pentagon and Congress — largely unaware that the program was coming — had different names for it. Some called it confusing. Others worried it was a flash in the pan. Overall, the consensus at first was that Replicator was a good idea but that people couldn’t tell whether it was more than that.
“We had a candid conversation” before the announcement, said a senior defense official involved in the effort with Hicks, granted anonymity to talk freely. “I said we’re probably gonna get our asses kicked for eight to nine months in the press. Are you ready?”
Part of the skepticism came from how little Hicks’ team shared about the program after launching it. Because she didn’t want the idea choked by bureaucratic thorns, the deputy announced it without a full plan to discuss it publicly. Even more, her staff wasn’t entirely sure how it would work.
“My Italian family uses WD-40 for literally everything. — it’s like you have a cut [use] WD-40. So when we zoomed out, there were all these great innovation gears [inside the Pentagon] but some of them were a little squeaky,” the official said.
Replicator was meant to make these all click into place.
Atop the effort was the Defense Innovation Unit, tasked with bringing high-tech weapons into the military. Along with Hicks’ staff, it surveyed the different parts of the Pentagon from the Army to the Air Force, asking what drones would matter most for a fight with China and what they could buy the fastest.
At the same time, the team was working with military leaders in the Pacific and Congress, which later agreed to free up half a bn dollars for the effort (the same number made it into the next defense budget, which Congress has yet to pass).
In the year since, the Pentagon has announced several systems selected for the program: mostly underwater vehicles, small flying drones and loitering munitions meant to explode on impact. This last group will make up the bulk of the program, a congressional aide said. Of the 2,500 to 3,000 systems the Pentagon plans to deliver, over half will be the Switchblade 600, a kamikaze drone.
Hicks argued these results helped change the narrative.
“Replicator really depended on having that reputational advantage internally to make it happen. Now the Hill and the press — that reputational advantage probably needed to prove out another year. I think we’ve done that by just putting our heads down,” she said.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks observes a Defense Innovation Unit site walkthrough in Mountain View, California, Dec. 12, 2023. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)
‘Dress rehearsal’
In a meeting last fall, another Pentagon official working on the program remembers getting goosebumps. Military leaders in the room were planning a Replicator “dress rehearsal” for early 2025 — a drill meant to prove how the weapons could all work together.
“There was this moment where we all realized how real this is,” said the official. It had gone from an idea to a table of the nation’s top officers.
Since Hicks announced the program, it’s earned real staying power. Officials across Washington cite it as an example of how to jolt America’s slow bureaucracy. And military leaders in the Pacific have been happy to have someone advocating for their priorities.
Last fall, the Pentagon announced a second version of the program, this time focused on protecting American bases from incoming drones — a problem on display across the Middle East since Israel’s war began in Gaza.
But the drill this year is also a sign of the issues Replicator has yet to address. For one, the military is still deciding where to station the drones, which so far have been relatively short-range and would struggle to enter a fight. The answer is likely to put them on ships, said Adm. Sam Papapro, the head of Indo-Pacific Command, at an event last November.
Military leaders are trying to make sure the drones can resist jamming — a huge problem in Ukraine — and how to make the weapons operate in synchrony. They’re also trying to decide how to sustain the weapons, since these drones are meant to be “attritable,” the Pentagon’s version of a plastic fork and knife compared to silverware.
“We’re now going from just buying the system to actually using it in an operationally relevant environment and assessing changes we need to make,” said Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer and analyst at the Hudson Institute, where he follows the program closely.
‘A solvable problem’
These tests won’t address the largest critique often leveled at Replicator: that it didn’t wasn’t big enough. China has huge stores of weapons, beyond what Horowitz listed earlier, and they’re growing. Thousands of relatively small drones won’t tip the military scales.
“The PRC has got 2,100 fighters, they’ve got three aircraft carriers, they have a battle force of 200 destroyers. Well, Roger, we’ve got a couple of drones,” Paparo said in November, using the common abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.
Hicks staffers bristle at this critique. Replicator, they argue, was never meant to be the Pentagon’s only insurance program for a war with China. It was meant to teach the Pentagon a new way of doing business. Even more, it wasn’t like there were bns of extra dollars lying around for the program. Starting Replicator at its current scale was hard enough given how much the Pentagon bureaucracy can resist change.
“What Replicator did was juice the system and show that this is a solvable problem,” Horowitz said.
Indeed, Hicks and other top Pentagon officials say this effort is only one part in a much larger engine designed to get the military more advanced weapons.
In an interview last month, the head of Pentagon research and engineering explained the point by pulling out a complicated flow chart, illustrating how the Defense Department brings a new weapon on board.
“There’s the entire ecosystem. This is how we fit together. It isn’t [that] only one piece of the puzzle is important and the rest is irrelevant,” said Heidi Shyu, tracing the Replicator section of the chart with her finger.
Even critics accepted this argument: They could blame Replicator for not being something it was never meant to be. But Brose, the executive at Anduril, also said that the program’s scope should factor into its legacy. If the U.S. needed a true crash program to help defend Taiwan, or other parts of the Pacific, then Replicator may have missed the moment, even if it’s on track to meet its goals.
Still, that doesn’t mean they don’t want it to stick around. The Pentagon, at least, expects it to.
“Initiatives change names all the time,” the first official said. (Source: glstrade.com/Military Times)
09 Jan 25. Indian Navy to acquire XLUUVs. The Indian Navy issued an expression of interest (EOI) in late 2024, seeking industry partners for the development of 12 XLUUVs that can be used to support anti-submarine warfare (ASW); mine-countermeasures (MCM); and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations.
These XLUUVs can serve as force multipliers, taking on some of the roles of conventional submarines. The XLUUVs will be designed to undertake “high-risk missions in restricted and shallow waters, long-duration missions of up to two months, and pre-programmed missions”, the Indian Navy said.
The Indian Navy added that the XLUUVs are expected to have a modular payload section, and the payloads to be developed for these vehicles include a communication system with satellite communications (satcom) capability, radar, electronic support measures (ESM), a sonar suite, a Doppler velocity log (DVL), and a navigation system. The XLUUVs will also be integrated with an image processing system utilising artificial intelligence (AI)-based perception algorithms.
The state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has the “design capabilities” for radar; electronic intelligence sensors; communications systems; and sonar systems, including flank array sonar, towed array sonar, multibeam echosounder, side scan sonar, and collision-avoidance sonar, which can be used to develop the XLUUVs, the navy said.
Once an industry partner is selected for the project, the prototype development is expected to be completed within three years. The prototype will be tested by the Indian Navy in its bases in the western city of Mumbai and the southeastern city of Visakhapatnam. (Source: Janes)
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