Schiebel completes flight test on SAGE system equipped Camcopter S-100 UAV

Schiebel and Selex, a Finmeccanica company, have successfully completed flight testing of Schiebel Camcopter S-100 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), integrated with Selex-built SAGE electronic warfare system.

Designed for radio frequency (RF) intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, the SAGE digital electronic support measure (ESM) and electronic intelligence (ELINT) system enhances situational awareness of the host system.

At a tactically significant range, the SAGE system passively gathers emitter data from RF sources and compares the data with an emitter library to identify and geo-locate any threats, thus enhancing situational awareness.

Selex ES Electronic Warfare sales vice president Pete Forrest said that with SAGE, customers have sophisticated RFdetection and geo-location system to operate cost-effectively on platforms such as the Camcopter S-100.

"Armed Forces are facing the two-headed challenge of needing to be able to detect increasingly RF threats while having to operate under tighter budgets," Forrest added.

"We are pleased to be working so effectively with Schiebel and look forward to demonstrations around the world in 2014," Forrest continued.

Schiebel Group of companies chairman Hans Georg Schiebel said the SAGE, which forms a core component of Schiebel’s integrated suite of sensors, will provide unprecedented step change for decision makers in tactical ISR collection capability.

"The SAGE integrated simply and quickly into the S-100, proving the flexibility of both the UAS and the ESM and ELINT," Schiebel added.

Boeing and Schiebel-developed Camcopter S-100 compact, highly versatile, autonomous UAV has been designed to operate day and night, on land and at sea while eliminates the need for a runway or launch-and-recovery equipment.