Royal Navy selects Schiebel and Thales for Peregrine UAS contract

The UK Ministry of Defence has selected Australian company Schiebel and Franco-British contractor Thales to deliver the Peregrine Uncrewed Air System (UAS) contract for the Royal Navy under a contract reported to be worth around $25 million. This will see Schiebel’s CAMCOPTER S-100 UAS fitted with a naval surveillance sensor suite to provide enhanced situational awareness for RN ships on operations. The S-100 will support the RN’s embarked Leonardo Wildcat helicopters aboard frigates and destroyers from 2024.

The Royal Australian Navy last year also selected the CAMCOPTER S-100 as its ship-borne UAS under Project SEA129 Ph.5.

Schiebel will provide the S-100 Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) UAS while Thales, as systems integrator, will pull together the onboard Intellgence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) suite. This will consists of a Thales I-Master radar, and undisclosed EO/IR camera and an Automatic Identification System (AIS), as fitted to all sea-going merchant and naval ships.

The suite will be fused together by CarteNav’s AIMS Mission System, enabling an all-weather detection and identification capability.

Late last year Schiebel and Thales, sponsored by the Royal Navy, took part in the NATO exercises REPMUS (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping using Maritime Uncrewed Systems) and Dynamic Messenger 2022 in Portugal. Fitted with a Wescam MX-8 EO/IR sensor and Thales BlueScan data relay sensor it was able to monitor data transmissions from a sonobuoy barrier and relay it to an ASW command cell ashore.

During this exercise the S-100 was also equipped with an Overwatch Imaging PT-8 Oceanwatch sensor and a Wescam MX-10 sensor to undertake ISR and SAR missions. The UAS also delivered medical supplies from shore to ship.