By Kalwinder Kaur
On behalf of the Swedish Army, the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration has awarded a fixed price order to AeroVironment to deliver 12 small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
The order includes ground stations, Puma AE and Wasp air vehicles, and training and logistics support. Procurement process and competitive evaluation have resulted in this order. Under the contract options, a total of 30 systems can be acquired.
The Swedish deployment will consist of AeroVironment Puma AE and Wasp UAS to deliver reconnaissance, intelligence and surveillance capabilities to support various mission assignments. The UASs are operated by AeroVironment’s portable, common ground control system, which reduces the requirement for logistics and equipment.
Roy Minson, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the AeroVironment, stated that customers now have the options to choose the right kind of UAS for performing particular mission assignments or they can use two or more small UAS for different purposes for the same mission assignments. The small UAS is being used by several allied armed forces due to their force multiplication and battle-proven force protection benefits to small tactical units.
Other international governments such as the Czech Republic, Australia, Denmark, Italy, France, Estonia, Norway, Netherlands, Lebanon, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Spain, Uganda and the UK have purchased AeroVironment’s small UAS.
Source: http://www.avinc.com