WATCHKEEPER EXCLUSIVE: Up Close With The Army Drone

This is the WatchKeeper remotely piloted air system. We're currently going through the process to flight. So in the rear of the Pinskow, which the aircraft's currently connected to, we have a member of the ground crew conducting all the pre-flight checks necessary to ensure that all the avionics and the payloads are working correctly before we then take control in the GCS. WatchKeeper's got two payloads. The first here is a synthetic aperture radar and ground moving target indicator radar. What that allows us to do is provide imagery in all weathers as well as pick out any movement at great distance before we then utilise our rear payload to understand what that movement is. We also have an antenna which provides us with an ability to conduct line of sight radio communications with ground troops. If we move towards the rear of the aircraft, we've got the electro-optical and infrared camera that provides the day and night imagery both for us inside the GCS as well as ground troops and any headquarters which have our imagery sent to them. Inside that payload is also a laser subsystem that contains a laser pointer which allows troops with night vision capabilities to see what WatchKeeper's looking at. It also has a designator and a rangefinder and those allow us to call on fires and allows munitions which are laser guided to be brought onto a target from WatchKeeper. At the rear of the aircraft, we've got the engine. This engine is a Wankel engine and that provides a 14 to 16 hours of endurance for the aircraft. The data links at the front and the rear of the aircraft is how the aircraft receives the data and the commands from us inside the ground control station up to a range of 150 kilometres.