This article is more than 1 year old

BAE 'skips a generation' in killer robot tech

The one where it was cheap, to be exact

This would seem about all the autonomy you actually want in current wars like Afghanistan or Iraq. Super-UAVs which can fly an entire mission without any communications back to a ground station might have some advantages in big wars against sophisticated enemies, but wouldn't need - and wouldn't be allowed to use - full autonomy above today's battlefields. In any case, by Wright's description, the Mantis in particular - unlike BAE's other MoD demonstrator, Taranis - isn't intended to be independent. Primarily a surveillance and recce platform, Mantis would lose most of its point if it never told anybody what it could see.

Asked what Mantis would bring to the party that wouldn't be available from other companies sooner and almost certainly cheaper, Wright said that a big advantage for Mantis would be "sovereignty", in that the machine's support and parts base would be British rather than under foreign control. But he was reluctant to say hand on heart that Mantis wouldn't incorporate any overseas kit or need any overseas backup, and understandably so - that would make it a very exceptional aircraft indeed. Just one of the candidate subsystems (the Selex Galileo PicoSAR radar being considered for Mantis) is at least partly Italian.

All in all, the Mantis does indeed look a bit like a "me too" system. BAE have seen the explosion in UAV use - especially by the military, but more and more in the civil sector - and they are determined to catch up with the leaders, ideally at the taxpayers' expense. Mantis has actually been under development for some time, and it seems plain that BAE would need to do it whether or not they had any seed money from the UK MoD. Even if that weren't the case, it's hard to see why the MoD would care - it is already flying Reapers, and would buy more right now if it had the money.

Actually it turns out that the MoD does have some money, as evidenced by Monday's contract. We naturally asked how much government cash had been awarded, but BAE's Wright said that the amount isn't being disclosed "because the MoD have asked that this not be released".

Following enquiry, an MoD spokesman said that wasn't the case - the amount of the Mantis development award wasn't being released because it was "commercially sensitive". That is, BAE wanted it kept secret as the information might give its market rivals an unfair advantage. When it was pointed out that BAE said this was not the case, the MoD reps promised to get back to us. As of publication, we haven't yet heard.

The MoD having recently stated that it can buy brand new Reapers for £10m a pop, it seems reasonable to suppose that actually the Mantis pricetag is being withheld so that people won't ask why we don't just buy X number of Reapers or Sky Warriors instead - or even, perhaps, Y number of desperately-necessary Chinook transport choppers, armoured vehicles or whatever. After all, there's a whole other government department in charge of business subsidies. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like