Rheinmetall KZO
| KZO | |
|---|---|
 KZO mounted on the starting device |
|
| Type: | TUAS |
| Design country: | |
| Manufacturer: | |
| First flight: |
1998 |
| Commissioning: |
2005 |
| Number of pieces: |
at least 60 |
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The KZO ( K leinfluggerät Z iel o Maintenance ; formerly Brevel ) the manufacturer Rheinmetall is an unmanned aerial vehicle (called a drone, technically a tactical unmanned aerial system , short TUAS ) that the army reconnaissance troop and artillery troops of the German Army uses for reconnaissance and target detection .
Aircraft
The drone, launched by a rocket engine , then propelled by a propeller and finally landing on a parachute, continuously delivers video recordings to the ground station by radio. The time offset remains under a minute. Since the camera is designed for infrared radiation , it works independently of daylight. The data transmission was designed for a range of at least 120 km and takes place with radar-guided directional antennas and frequency spreading with frequency hopping . In practice, the range is 100 km and the reconnaissance range is 65 km. The route to be taken is programmed before the start, but can be changed during use. Autonomous site surveillance and target tracking are also possible.
For the development, the Franco-British Matra BAe Dynamics and the German STN Atlas Elektronik formed the GIE Eurodrone consortium , which was commissioned by Germany and France. At the turn of the millennium, France tended against and Germany for procurement. Series production was decided by the Bundestag in 2001. By mid-2009, six systems with ten drones each with a total value of 300 million euros had been ordered. Each system includes a ground station and two launch pad, antenna, maintenance and recovery vehicles. The first series system was handed over to the Bundeswehr on November 28, 2005 in Bremen by today's general contractor Rheinmetall Defense Electronics (RDE). The KZO has been an officially approved unmanned aircraft since November 24, 2006. The Wehrtechnische Dienststelle 61 in Manching has certified the road safety and aviation suitability of the KZO system with the type approval . This is the first time in the Federal Republic of Germany that an unmanned aircraft system has been fully tested in accordance with an approval standard for unmanned aircraft and approved for its intended use. Rheinmetall Defense Electronics is the holder of the type certificate.
The drone is started by a launch vehicle from a container using a solid rocket engine (booster). The manufacturer Göbler-Hirth Motoren has been supplying the motor for the propeller since summer 2010 . Landing on a parachute is cushioned by airbags when it touches the ground. The aircraft is ready for use again after a few hours. The following flight consumables must be renewed before they can be used again: parachute, a rescue battery for landing the drone, two airbags with small pressurized gas bottles and fuel. In 2007, the gross unit price was around 3,000,000 euros. By 2007 there were also 18 losses. By June 2014, a total of 61 reconnaissance drones had been delivered, of which 43 were in the Bundeswehr's “usable inventory” at that time. A total of 18 KZOs had been lost by June 2014, of which 12 were destroyed (9 by crashes) and 6 were considered missing. By mid-February 2012, only three KZOs had crashed during training in Germany and four during deployment in Afghanistan.
Calls
Since the end of July 2009, the KZO drone system has been used by the Bundeswehr as part of the ISAF mission in the Kunduz area of Afghanistan. The observation tank artillery battalion 131 from Mühlhausen / Thuringia is the first association to use the KZO system abroad. From January 2010 the Artillery Training Regiment 345 from Kusel followed .
Components of the overall system
2 trains of:
- 1 × launch vehicle (Mercedes truck 5t mil gl)
- 1 × aerial vehicle MB 5t mil gl (2 t overload)
- 1 × ground control station MB 5t mil gl HÜ / cabin 15ft, operated by three soldiers (commander, navigator and image evaluator)
- 1 × repair vehicle MB 5t mil gl HÜ / cabin 15ft
- 1 × MB Unimog U5000 recovery vehicle
- 1 × fueling system MB 5t mil gl
- 5 × drone with transport and storage container (TuLb)
additionally, not provided by the company:
- 1 × MB 5t mil gl / cabin IIFM-A ground equipment Insttrupp
- 1 × MB Wolf (long) As an operation and cable laying team (HVE)
- 2 × MB 2t mil gl / cabin IFM-A pack mule / WSA MES2 / 3
Technical specifications
| Parameter | Data |
|---|---|
| length | 2.26 m |
| span | 3.42 m |
| height | 0.955 m |
| maximum take-off mass | 168 kg (fully upgraded) |
| speed | 120-216 km / h |
| drive | Two-cylinder rear propeller motor from ZF Sachs with 24 kW (33 PS ) |
| Reconnaissance altitude | 800-3000 m |
| Bet peak heights | 300-3500 m |
| Maximum altitude | 4000 m |
| Reconnaissance range |
65 km with interferers, 100 km without interferers (max. 140 km) |
| Minimum duration of use | 3.5 h |
| maximum duration of use | 4 h |
| Reconnaissance sensors | Thermal imaging camera Zeiss "Ophelios" with 8x zoom |
literature
- Reinhard Scholzen : Army reconnaissance . Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2012. ISBN 978-3-613-03408-2 .
- Reinhard Scholzen : reconnaissance artillery. In: Truppendienst 2, 2014, pp. 146–150.
Web links
- Bundeswehr: KZO - The electronic eye in the sky ( YouTube video, September 23, 2019)
Individual evidence
- ^ System KZO . Federal Ministry of Defense . August 7, 2012. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
- ↑ EADS to supply data-link for German Army reconnaissance drone 'KZO' ( Memento from June 19, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ Small aircraft for target location . Federal ministry of defense. November 13, 2012. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
- ↑ Brevel . Federation of American Scientists . September 21, 1999. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
- ↑ Afghanistan: Bundeswehr uses multi-million dollar mini-drones . Spiegel Online . August 8, 2009. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
- ↑ Unmanned Air Vehicles for the Army - Future Concepts (PDF; 3.39 MB) NATO . April 1999. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
- ↑ Hirth Motors Receives Contract to Produce Engine for Rheinmetall Defense Electronics KZO UAV ( Memento from June 19, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ http://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btd/17/144/1714436.pdf
- ↑ Overview: Bundeswehr drones and drone losses. Press and Information Office in the Federal Ministry of Defense, August 20, 2014, accessed on April 9, 2015 .
- ↑ Printed matter 17/8335 (PDF; 353 kB) German Bundestag . S. 16. February 16, 2012. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
