UAVs

Flight International online news 10:00GMT: The UK’s Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation and Asessment initiative (ASTRAEA) has been awarded £32 million ($57 million) to fund a three-year project to study how unmanned air vehicles should operate in civil airspace.



The funding – half of which will be provided by industry and half by the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry and regional development agencies – was confirmed on Wednesday morning before the UAV flying demonstration at the ParcAberporth UAV centre of excellence in west Wales.

The centre – which is being developed by the Welsh Development Agency with the support of European funds – will be the main coordination centre for ASTRAEA.

The initiative, set up in July 2004, is aiming to carry out a major demonstration of routine UAV operations in non-segregated airspace by 2010.

Among the aircraft flying at Wednesday’s demonstration are the Elbit Systems Hermes 450, the platform for the Thales UK Watchkeeper surveillance system, which is due to enter service in 2010.

MURDO MORRISON/LONDON