UV Online 
MAKS 09: KB Lutch seeks export orders for Tipchak multi-UAV system
By Peter Donaldson, Zhukovsky
With series production and deliveries under way for the Russian Army and legal approval for export granted, the Rybinsk based Lutch Design Bureau is exhibiting its ‘Tipchak’ multi-UAV system here at Zhukovsky. Company spokesman Dr Alexey V Kuznetsov told Unmanned Vehicles that the system is being offered in to variants: the ‘basic’ version, which includes a four-truck GCS and six air vehicles, and a smaller system with a two-truck GCS and two UAVs.
There are three types of air vehicle available with the Tipchak system. The ‘basic’ aircraft is the UAV-05, a 70 kg twin-boom pusher that offers up to 14.5 kg payload capacity, a 70 km ‘maximum surveillance range’ and an endurance of ‘not less than three hours’. Catapult launched and parachute recovered, UAV-05 flies at between 200 and 3,000 m above sea level at speeds of between 90 and 190 kph. The payload consists of a combined TV/IR turret and a high-resolution digital stills camera.
Designed for maritime use, the slightly smaller UAV-07 is configured with a rear mounted wing, a canard fore-plane and a ducted pusher propeller. Within its 35 kg MTOW it offers 10 kg of payload capacity and the same combination of cameras as its larger cousin. Its speed and altitude ranges and its endurance are the same as those of the UAV-05, but a shorter surveillance range bracket of 30 to 50 km is quoted.
The third air vehicle is designated UAV-08. The largest of the three, it has an MTOW of 90 kg, of which up to 15 kg is payload capacity, and up to eight hours endurance. This aircraft has high-aspect-ratio wings, a slim fuselage and a V-tail. It is unusual in that the tail section appears to pass through the hub of the pusher propeller. With a maximum surveillance range of 120 km, UAV-08 flies at between 80 and 180 kph and at 200 to 4,500 m above sea level.
UAV-08 also offers a broader range of payloads to choose from, adding a stabilised EO system with a laser rangefinder, side-looking radar, comms relay, ‘radio-technical’ (ESM), chemical surveillance and jamming equipment to the combination offered by the others. UAV-08 also has the option of runway take-offs and landings as well as the catapult/parachute method.
All three UAVs are powered by piston engines and can operate in extremes of temperature between -40 and +50 degrees C. All also feature quick-change nose cones for ease of payload swapping.
Series production began in 2008 following an extensive testing programme the year before, and the system exhibited here in Zhukovsky is the second of two delivered so far to the Russian Army, says Dr Kuznetsov.
The ‘basic’ ground control system consists of a transport and launch vehicle, an antenna vehicle, a vehicle for the operators and a maintenance and support vehicle, all of which can be based on Humvee, Kamaz or Tiger chassis. This combination would be for a ground mobile operation, but Lutch literature also shows a deployable version based on shelters and a catapult trolley in place of the trucks.
Lutch also manufactures datalink equipment and is exhibiting a new tripod-mounted miniature system here at the show. It can both act as a command link for the UAV and transfer broadband data (imagery, telemetry and navigation) from the air vehicle to the GCS. Other advertised capabilities include the creation of networks between ground and airborne units, and C2 and surveillance systems for special forces, including in cluttered urban environments.
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