Here's more, courtesy of Business Times:
Development of LALEE drone started 3 years ago, says Mindef's chief
scientist
SINGAPORE Technologies Engineering's involvement in a study to
conceptualise
and develop a long-endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was
revealed yesterday by Lui Pao Chuen, chief defence scientist at the
Ministry of Defence (Mindef).
Details of the study to develop a surveillance drone were unveiled
for the first time at the Republic of Singapore Navy's Naval
Platform Technology Seminar by Professor Lui.
"We have just completed a three-year-long study of LALEE which is
an integrated airborne surveillance and communications system,
designed to provide continuous temporal coverage over a very large
area," he said.
"Providing a task group operating in the littorals with continuous
surveillance from the air with this class of UAV will be
considerably cheaper than operating current generation of
surveillance and communications
platforms."
Prof Lui told BT that the UAV's name is an acronym which stands for
"low altitude, long-enduring endurance". He explained that
endurance refers to the drone's ability to stay aloft for long
periods to scan the skies and the earth's surface continuously,
while "enduring endurance" means a long service life.
The LALEE UAV is a twin-boom, single-span pilotless aircraft which
carries its sensor payload slung between a central pod. No details
on the LALEE's dimensions or performance were released, but Prof
Lui did drop hints on the size of the drone.
"You don't realise how big it is because in the picture, there is
no scale," he said.
"The radar is about eight metres long
by one-and-a-half metres deep. Can you imagine this sort of size
hung underneath? And you can replace it with a smaller pod when
you're carrying other types of sensors."
Prof Lui added that engineers from Mindef, theDefence Science
and
Technology Agency and ST Engg are now finishing the UAV's
preliminary design in partnership with its designer, Burt
Rutan.
The US-based aircraft designer won worldwide
acclaim for creating Voyager, a revolutionary plane which made a
record non-stop, un-refuelled round-the-world flight in 1986.
"He's a very prolific designer," Prof Lui said. "In the past 30
years he has designed one to two new aeroplanes every year. So the
next step would be for us to take the design and build a
proof-of-concept prototype aircraft, and at the same time prepare
for full-scale development. This is a major
project in line with our belief that information is critical and
therefore we're willing to put our resources to acquire the
information necessary for our war-fighting operations."
The local industry will be developing the aircraft in Singapore, he
added, noting that Singapore's defence engineers have participated
in aircraft developments before.
"The first one was the EC-120 (light helicopter), then there have
also been upgrades of our aircraft like the A-4 and F-5," he said.
"Our engineers have experience in integrating systems on board
aircraft. The jump will be more of taking the total responsibility
for this new aircraft. This is a serious study in order that you
have an option to make a decision some time
in the future."
Prof Lui reflected that although the LALEE drone has drawn interest
from several countries, demand for such a UAV was weak
several years ago. He said: "When we started our studies on LALEE
three years ago, no one in the West was interested in it."
He noted that France, Sweden and the US have since expressed
interest in the study. "They are talking to us because we invested
three years of study," he said. "Any questions they have asked us,
we've already looked at the questions and got some answers. And
therefore we are a very good partner for potential
collaboration.
"We put ourselves in that position because we dared to take a step
forward. We dare to dream, to do and not sit back and wait for
other people to do and then follow them."