Heron / Machatz 1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Israel

Heron / Machatz 1 is a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned air vehicle (UAV) system primarily designed to perform strategic reconnaissance and surveillance operations. It is designed and manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) at its Malat division, Israel. The advanced system offers fully automated take-off and landing, even under adverse weather conditions.

Flying at a height of 30,000ft, Heron provides its operators with real-time information on enemy battlefields by performing surveillance and target acquisition over a large area.

Initially, the Heron UAV was deployed by the Indian Air Force and was used for high-altitude land surveillance and maritime patrol missions. Later, Israeli and Turkish Air Forces acquired the UAV system for similar applications.

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operates the Heron UAV in Afghanistan for surveillance, reconnaissance, security and escort and battle damage assessment.

Heron features

The Heron UAV is configured for multiple operations, even under adverse weather conditions. It uses multiple sensors and satellite communication (SATCOM) for extended-range data capture and transfer. Its features include state-of-the-art avionics, retractable landing gear, and automatic take-off and landing systems.

Orders and deliveries

The Turkish Ministry of Defence (MoD) awarded a $150m contract to IAI in May 2005 to supply 30 Heron UAVs and ten Elbit Systems ground stations along with three or four UAVs for each ground station. Out of the total ten ground stations, two were delivered in November 2008, with the remainder scheduled for delivery in 2009.

The Israeli MoD awarded a multiyear supply support contract worth $50m to IAI for the supply of Heron UAVs to the Israeli Air Force (IAF). Heron, named Shoval ('trail' in Hebrew), has replaced the Searcher I and II UAVs. The Heron UAV system was delivered to the IAF in March 2007.

IAI has also supplied 50 Heron medium-altitude low-endurance UAVs to the Indian Army, under a $220m contract. The deal was scheduled to be completed by December 2004 but was postponed due to changes in the ernment at New Delhi. It was completed in 2009. The Indian Army will deploy the Heron UAVs on its borders with Pakistan and China. IAI also upgraded the Russian built 32 Hind Mi-24 helicopters for the Indian Army.

In 2009, one Heron UAV was supplied to US forces in El Salvador by IAI's US subsidiary Stark Aviation to fight against drug traffickers. The electro-optical sensor in the UAV has ensured maximum coverage of the area.

IAI's Heron UAV will be used by Australia in 2010 under a new C$95m ($88.1m) lease aggrement for two years with MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA). The operational service will begin in 2010 with one year extension period. The services offered will include maintenance and logistics to provide real-time, multisensor intelligence information directly to the ground station.

UAV variants

Eagle and Heron TP are the two variants of Heron. While Eagle is being developed by EADS for the French Airforce, Heron TP has been designed for the IAF. Both Eagle and Heron TP are designed with autonomous capability including automated take-off and landing.

Eagle can fly 40 hours at a height of 30,000ft. It can carry 250kg payload and various sensors such as MPR (maritime patrol radar) , SAR (synthetic aperture radar) / MTI (moving target indicator), EO (electro-optics) / IR (infrared) payloads, SIGINT (signal intelligence), COMINT (communication intelligence), laser designator and communications relays.

Eagle has two variants – Eagle 1 and Eagle 2. Eagle 1 is powered with 115hp Rotax 914 engine while Eagle 2 has a 1,200hp PT6A engine. Eagle 2 can fly at an altitude of 45,000ft.

Heron TP, also called Eitan. can carry multiple payloads and perform multple missions such as COMINT, SIGINT and IMINT (image intelligence) or SAR and communications relay.

Heron TP can fly at 45,000ft with an endurance of approximately 36 hours. The first flight of Heron TP was in 2006.

Navigation

The GPS-enabled Heron can be controlled either manually from the ground control station or through autonomous mode. It is fully equipped with automatic launch and recovery (ALR) system which helps in automatic safe landing during communication failure with the GCS.

Engine

The Heron UAV has a single 115hp Rotax 914 turbo aircraft engine. It was manufactured by Austria's leading aircraft engine supplier BRP-Rotax. The engine has the capacity to produce 5,800rpm output power.

Sensors

Heron UAV has EO and IR sensors, thermal surveillance equipment and laser designator. The sensors were supplied by Northrop Grumman and Tamam Division of IAI. The EO sensor converts light rays into electronic signals for capturing images, real-time data and videos.

The laser designator is used in the Heron UAV for targeting the enemy battlefield. Thermal surveillance equipment is used to capture high resolution images during night by penetrating through clouds, rain, smoke, fog and smog.

The UAV also comprises a direct line-of-sight (LoS) datalink, UAV airborne data relay for beyond LOS missions and ground-based data relay for communicating with the ground control station (GCS).

Radars

Electronic support measures help the Heron in threat detection and examines the area to determine signals emitted from the surrounding radars. It is primarily used for examining the battlefield area and provides the ground station commanders with relavant data. The AIS gathers details of ships such as vessel type, vessel name and destination.

The radar systems for the Heron have been manufactured by IAI's subsidiary ELTA Systems. ELTA has manufactured the MPR to identify vessels from very long distances and to use silhouette target acquisition. MPR also provides SAR images and detects ground vehicles using its ground moving target indicator (GMTI) mode.

Ground control system

The processing, retrieving and storing of the real-time data provided by Heron UAV will be undertaken by the ground control system. The state-of-art commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology is used at GCS for converting the sensor data such as live and stored images, imagery and spatial information including EO, SAR, MTI maps, SIGINT and ESM into actionable intelligence.

A large common map display is installed in the GCS. It monitors the multidimensional situational picture of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data provided by the Heron.