CL-289 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Germany

Posted on 14 July, 2009

The CL-289 reconnaissance system is an unmanned airborne reconnaissance vehicle for use at corps and divisional level. The system has been in service with the German and French armies since 1992 and has been deployed for peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo by both the French and German armed forces. The 7th Artillery Regiment of the French Army has four PIVER batteries with 54 CL-289 drones in service.

CL-289 was developed as a tri-national project between Canada, France and Germany. Bombardier Inc and the Canadair Group of Canada were the system leaders and Dornier GmbH (an EADS company) the prime contractor.

CL-289 DRONE

The body of the drone is 3.48m in length and has cruciform wings and canard control surfaces. The reconnaissance sensors are installed in the underside of the fuselage. Radar signature reduction has been achieved using radar-absorbing material and low radar cross-section contour design.

RECONNAISANCE PAYLOAD

The reconnaissance payload consists of a Zeiss Optronic KRb 8/24D optical camera and a Safran Corsaire infrared linescan system, which can be used separately or simultaneously according to the mission requirement.

The KRb 8/24D optical camera is equipped with three parallel lenses with deflecting prisms to provide a wide angle of view in the direction perpendicular to the direction of flight. Control of the exposure intervals ensures a degree of overlap for stereoscopic images.

The Corsaire infrared linescan system generates a video signal which is simultaneously recorded on the onboard data recorder and transmitted via the data link to the ground station.

The Sword development program, undertaken by Germany and France, involves the provision of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to provide long-range high-resolution images of the terrain under all weather conditions. The radar can also operate in moving target indicator mode to display images of moving objects in the landscape.