Thread: Mexico has unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance

Israeli-made Dominator UAV tested in Mexico

An Israeli-made intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance UAV purchased by Mexico is undergoing flight testing in Mexico.

By Richard Tomkins | Oct. 1, 2015 at 4:00 PM

YAVNE, Israel, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Israeli defense contractor Aeronautics Ltd. is flight testing its Dominator XP unmanned aerial vehicle in Mexico, which has purchased the system.

The Dominator XP is a medium-altitude long-endurance aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions and is based on the DA-42 twin star, an Austrian commercial plane.

It has a length of 28.3 feet, a maximum speed of 219 miles per hour and a service ceiling of 30,000 feet. Endurance is 28 hours with a 900 pound payload.

Mexico is the first customer for the system, which first took to the air in 2009.

"The dominator is the highlight of Aeronautics development in the recent years," said Amos Mathan, Aeronautics' chied executive officer. "Taking a civil aircraft and transforming it into UAS allows the operators to enjoy all the benefits of a large UAS in an affordable price and with exceptional reliability.

"This is the first contract in which we export the UAS instead of renting it to the costumer, and I have no doubt that after the implementation of the system in Mexico we will soon market the dominator to other countries as well."

Mexico bought the system through Balam Security, a Mexican marketing firm.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Sec...9031443727591/

This makes no sense to me. The advantage of a UAV is that it is smaller than a manned aircraft thereby making it much cheaper and harder to detect. It may also be put in harms way without risking the life of a pilot. All they're saving by turning a small aircraft into a UAV is the cost of a pilot--unless the narcotraficantes have acquired anti-aircraft weapons.

Mexico’s Drones: Who uses them and why


POSTED IN

News September 21, 2015 4:52 pm

AUTHOR
Iñigo Guevara@IniGuevara
Source:

You probably don’t know it, but Mexican skies have been filling up with drones for at least a decade. Who uses them? Security agencies for the most part. For what purpose? Read on.

Drones are an eye in the sky, a powerful surveillance tool that can be deployed for many different purposes. Photo:

SedenaYou say drones and people think flying, killing robots.

So-called “drone strikes” in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Somalia make constant headlines, especially when they result in civilian injuries and deaths.

But shooting down people from the comfort of a booth thousands of miles away are not the main use of drones, or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), as they are properly called.

They are, for the most part, an eye in the sky, a powerful surveillance tool that can be deployed for many different purposes: monitoring oil pipelines and active volcanoes, assessing the damage wrought by forest fires and floods, locating lost hikers, taking wide-angle photos of demonstrations or sporting events, etc. Drones are no longer a futuristic concept: They are part and parcel of our lives.

In Mexico, drone use still creates a lot of hype. But when it becomes known that security agencies use them, hype can rapidly morph into (somewhat hysterical) alarm. Now the government can spy on us from the sky? When did that happen? Well, a decade ago, actually. Here’s the story.

The alphabet soup of drones
Drones are a relatively simple technology with a very complicated nomenclature. So here goes a crash course on Unmanned Vehicle (UV) classification.

Unmanned Vehicles can be used from the air (UAV), on the ground (UGV) or at sea, the latter including surface (USV) or underwater (UUV) capabilities.

Regardless of where it is employed, a UV functions as part of a system that requires a control station and a data link that allows control of the vehicle. Thus, UVs are also referred to as remotely piloted vehicles (RPV), because at the end of the line, there is a human being interacting with a machine.

Usually, an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) is composed of a Ground Control Station (GCS) and linked to one or more UAVs. The link can be either line-of sight (LOS) or used with satellite communications (SATCOM). SATCOM allows a UAV to fly much further and its reach depends basically, on its fuel.

Is that all? Not quite. Depending on its features and reach, UAS are categorized into: micro-UAS, mini-UAS, Tactical UAS (TUAS), Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) or High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE).

Design: El Daily Post Dawn of the Mexican drones

A group of technology firms in Jalisco developed the first Mexican UAV in 2002. It was a tactical UAS with an 80-kilometer range, top speed of 148 kilometers per hour and six-hour endurance.

The prototype, named S3 Manta, led to the creation of a new company, Hydra Technologies, in 2005. The startup received public funds as seed money.

The S4 was in the Tactical UAS category: it had a range of 110 km and could stay airborne for 8 hours. Photo: Hydra

TechnologiesThe S3 prototype evolved into the S4 Ehécatl (named for the Aztec god of the wind) in 2006. The S4 was in the Tactical UAS category: It had a range of 110 kilometers and could stay airborne for eight hours. It soon became the crown jewel of the Mexican drone industry.

The law enforcement pioneers

The S4 was developed for the Mexican military market, but its first buyer was a law enforcement agency. In 2007, the Federal Police bought a small fleet of S4 TUAS. They also acquired a mini-UAS also developed by Hydra, named E1 Gavilán (Sparrow). The Gavilán can be launched by hand; it has a range of 11 kilometers and can stay in the air between two and three hours.

The Gavilán can be launched by hand; it has a range of 11 km and can stay in the air between two and three hours. Photo: Wiki Commons

In 2009, an Israeli-sourced product, the Orbiter mini-UAS from Aeronautics Defense Systems (ADS), joined the Mexican inventory, when an undisclosed law enforcement agency (most likely, the Federal Police) bought four systems for $22 million dollars. The Orbiter’s range was 15 kilometers and had a four-hour endurance. It could fly higher than the existing mini-UAS, with a ceiling of 18,000 feet.

The Orbiter’s range was 15 km and had a 4-hour endurance. Photo: Aeronautics Defense Systems

In 2011, the Federal Police took a further step and procured a longer range UAS: the Hermes 900. A product of Israel-based Elbit Systems, the Hermes 900 is by far the most capable UAS purchased in Latin America. Since it is controlled by satellite communications, its reach is only limited by its 36-hour endurance. The contract for the two Hermes 900s was announced at 744 million pesos ($50 million dollars) in 2011. The vehicles were delivered in 2012. There is no publicly available data about their operational deployment.

The Hermes 900 is by far the most capable UAS purchased in Latin America. Photo: Elbit Systems

Cisen, Mexico’s civilian intelligence agency, and the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) might have also acquired similar-sized UAS, but information about those purchases is sketchy at best.

According to media reports published in February 2015 and publicly available procurement documents, the PGR may have bought two ADS Dominator UAS in 2013-2014, but the evidence is not conclusive.

Air Force expansion
Military agencies have also entered the drone game. In July 2008, the Defense Secretariat (Sedena) signed a $25 million-dollar contract for a single Hermes 450 UAS and three Skylark I mini-UAS with Elbit Systems. The medium-sized Hermes 450 has a range of up to 200 kilometers and 18 hours of endurance, while the Skylark I, a hand-launched UAS, had a range of 15 kilometers and three-hour endurance.

The Skylark I, a hand-launched UAS, had a range of 15 km and 3-hour endurance. Photo: Wiki commons

In May 2009, the Mexican Air Force (FAM) created a UAS Squadron (ESANT: Escuadrón de Sistemas Aéreos No Tripulados). ESANT was rolled into Sedena’s Command and Control Center of the Integrated Airspace Surveillance System (CMCSIVA: Centro de Mando y Control del Sistema Integrado de Vigilancia Aerea) in June 2010. CMCSIVA consolidates all communications and signals from Mexico’s early warning radar stations and airborne assets.

According to official Sedena documents, Hydra Technologies donated an S4 Ehécatl and a G1 Guerrero UAS in July 2012.

These were integrated into ESANT to operate alongside the Hermes 450. The G1 is a shorter range TUAS with an 80-kilometer range and six-hour endurance.

Sedena makes use of its UAS squadron for intelligence gathering against organized crime, but also for patrolling border regions, supporting disaster relief operations, and surveilling strategic installations, notably those of Pemex, Mexico’s national oil company, and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). Sedena has also publicly acknowledged that it has used its UAS to monitor the northbound freight train, colloquially known as La Bestia (the Beast), that transports thousands of U.S.-bound immigrants every day.

According to official figures, between September 2013 and August 2014, the FAM’s Hermes 450 flew 39 missions (286 hours), its S4 Ehécatl flew 29 missions (92 hours) and the G1 Guerrero flew 81 missions (202 hours).

According to the 2013-2018 National Development Plan, the FAM plans to increase its current UAS fleet with three new systems by 2017. The specific systems to be procured are yet to be selected.

The Navy’s in-house solution
Even though it was involved in the development of the early Hydra Technology models, the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) has decided to (mostly) go it alone in the development of its UAS capabilities. Semar funded its own research and development program at the Navy’s Technology Research and Development Institute (Inidetam: Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico de la Armada de México).

In 2012, Inidetam delivered two UAS versions: the 6-kilometer range VANT that could fly for 80 minutes, and the 2-kilometer range mini-VANT, the first known Mexican micro-UAS.


In 2012, SEMAR delivered two UAS versions: the 6-km range VANT that could fly for 80 minutes, and the 2-km range mini-VANT, the first known Mexican micro-UAS. Photo: SEMAR

In 2013, Semar began to fund the second phase of its UAS R&D program and in 2014 announced it was building a new UAS base and training center in El Salado, Veracruz. Semar aims to have a longer-range UAS prototype capable of patrolling Mexico’s maritime domain by October 2015.

So far, the Navy has invested around $5.6 million dollars in UAS development, a very low figure for what it aims to achieve.

By the end of 2015, the VANT-ISR prototype’s capabilities will prove if Semar’s bet for low-cost in-house R&D is successful.

Along with in-house research efforts, the Navy has been aiming to take control of some unmanned vehicles owned by Pemex.

In 2010, the state-owned oil company bought six Rafael Protector unmanned surface vessels, from Israel-based firm Rafael. The Protectors were followed by five ADS Orbiter II mini-UAS which would also be used to patrol critical infrastructure.

Photo: http://www.rafael.co.il/ (Click for video.)

Pemex has been unable to field the USVs, mainly due to inadequate infrastructure and personnel. Since 2012, Pemex has been in talks to transfer the USV’s to Semar, but as of July 2015, the vessels remain in storage. According to Semar, it expects to operate the Protectors, once transferred, out of a new base from the Dos Bocas Maritime Terminal in Tabasco.

Design: El Daily Post

What’s next?

Increased use of drones by security agencies has spawned a national industry. The number of Mexican companies involved in the sector has grown rapidly over the past few years.

Along with Hydra Technology, Aerovantech, UAV Aerospace, 3D Robotics, and Quetzal Aeroespacial have emerged as dedicated UAS companies in the growing aerospace clusters and high technology corridors of Baja California, Nuevo León, and Querétaro.

Civilian and commercial uses for unmanned technology are rapidly expanding. Drones are increasingly deployed in many sectors, including energy, agriculture, construction, and logistics.

The use of unmanned vehicles is still a controversial issue worldwide, as drones provide their operators with round-the-clock intelligence gathering. That of course can threaten privacy rights. But the genie is out of the bottle: The drone is not going to be un-invented. The challenge is to provide a balance between surveillance and privacy. That, of course, will probably require far more oversight than has been in offer so far.

But, whatever happens, one thing is certain: ever more drones will buzz around your head in Mexican skies, whether you realize it or not.

http://www.eldailypost.com/news/2015...-them-and-why/

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