Thales successfully demonstrates automatic take-off and landing on the Elbit Hermes 450
26 August 2008
Neuilly sur Seine, 26 August 2008 – Thales and Elbit Systems today announce that an important trial of the Thales MAGIC ATOLS (automatic take-off and landing) system has successfully been achieved on Elbit’s Hermes ® 450 Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV), demonstrating and validating automatic take-off and landing.
A number of successful qualification flights were carried out in Israel during May, including automatic take-offs, landings and touch-and-go with Thales's MAGIC ATOLS system on board. The MAGIC ATOLS system was integrated into the Hermes 450 as a fully redundant system in addition to the GPS based take-off and landing capability, allowing it to perform the take-off and landing task without an external pilot dedicated to this phase.
The demonstration has provided Thales with extremely promising results for the future usage of this functionality for UAVs. In addition, the reduced logistic footprint will permit a quick and easy deployment compatible with land force operations.
Thales's MAGIC ATOLS is an automatic, compact system ensuring maximum safety, in all weather conditions, during the critical take-off and landing phases of fixed wing UAV operations. The MAGIC ATOLS system has a non-intrusive standalone architecture and together with the UAV's GPS based take-off and landing capability ensures a quick and simple integration into the UAV system.
The high-precision and long-range positioning sensor performance paves the way for future applications on MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) as well as tactical rotary wing UAVs. The current MAGIC ATOLS sub-system and its growth capabilities have been fully developed by Thales in France with the involvement of several innovative SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises).
Hermes® 450 UAVs are operated extensively in military and homeland security operations worldwide providing an outstanding ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) capability. It is recognised as the leading long-endurance tactical UAV. To date the Hermes ® 450 has accumulated more than 100,000 flight hours, thereby demonstrating its high reliability, robustness, maturity and reduced logistic footprint. Consequently the Hermes ® 450 is perfectly adapted to cover deployment for urgent operations.
About Thales
Thales is a leading international electronics and systems group, addressing defence, aerospace and security markets worldwide. Thales's leading-edge technology is supported by 22 000 R&D engineers who offer a capability unmatched in Europe to develop and deploy field-proven mission-critical information systems. To this end, the group's civil and military businesses develop in parallel and share a common base of technologies to serve a single objective: the security of people, property and nations. The group builds its growth on its unique multi-domestic strategy based on trusted partnerships with national customers and market players, while leveraging its global expertise to support local technology and industrial development. Thales employs 68,000 people in 50 countries with forecast 2007 revenues of € 12.3 billion.
About Elbit Systems
Elbit Systems Ltd. is an international defence electronics company engaged in a wide range of defence-related programs throughout the world. The Company, which includes Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries, operates in the areas of aerospace, land and naval systems, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance ("C4ISR"), unmanned air vehicle (UAV) systems, advanced electro-optics, electro-optic space systems, EW suites, airborne warning systems, ELINT systems, data links and military communications systems and radios. The Company also focuses on the upgrading of existing military platforms and developing new technologies for defence, homeland security and commercial aviation applications.
Press contact:
Thales Aerospace
Natasha Harvey
+ 33 1 34 81 40 50
natasha.harvey@fr.thalesgroup.com
Thales Corporate
Caroline Philips
Tel. +33 1 57 77 86 26
caroline.philips@thalesgroup.com
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