Draft:INTA SIVA

SIVA
General information
Type	UAV
Role	Reconnaissance
National origin	Spain
Manufacturer	INTA
Primary user	Spanish Army, Spanish Air Force
Number built	4
History
Introduction date	2006

The INTA SIVA ( Sistema Integrado de Vigilancia Aérea, Spanish for Integrated System of Aerial Surveilance) is a UAV system developed by INTA as part of the Spanish Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Program.

Development

The program was launched in 1988, when the Spanish government began a national program to develop a tactical UAV surveillance system for its armed forces. The main objective of the program was to experiment with unmanned air components for its armed forces, specially in reconnaissance and observation roles. This would allow to free manned aerial assets to focus on more cost effective roles in addition to integrate aerial elements into ground units. Additionally, the project involved both public and private institutions in order to boost the Spanish industrial base and know-how.

The program includes the UAV along with its ground control segment.

The main aim was to fully develop a highly competitive indigenous UAV in partnership with both private and public institutions.

It culminated in the completion of the program in 2006.

In 2013, SIVA was equipped with a fully automated take-off and landing system.This allowed the system to perform fully autonomous flights, freeing operators to focus on mission planning and decision making based on the information provided by the system.

In 1988, INTA (with the prospect of having to develop a national battlefield surveillance system) began the R&D engineering that culminated almost 18 years later (at the end of 2006) with the delivery of four pilotless aircraft to the Spanish Army. The usefulness of pilotless aircraft is that no war can be won without control of the air. One of the missions that aviation can perform is the observation of the enemy's movements. This observation has traditionally been entrusted to fighter aircraft, that is, fighter-bomber aircraft equipped with powerful cameras capable of detecting movements of the opposing forces. However, this presents a clear drawback: the impossibility of a pilot remaining for long periods of time over enemy territory without running the risk of being shot down, with the consequent loss of lives and material, but also the exhaustion that long-duration missions such as observation missions produce in the pilots themselves and the material. Therefore, in order to avoid the loss of human lives and to minimise acceptable losses, the first prototypes of pilotless aircraft were developed in the late 1960s (in Israel and the United States). Spain has developed its own consistent technology, which has been the work of INTA. Spanish UAVs can remain in the air for more than 7 hours, can be deployed more than 150 km from the take-off point and can carry different types of payload depending on the mission to be carried out (night vision sensors, infrared sensors, synthetic aperture radars in development, etc.). In 2013, SIVA was equipped with an automatic landing and take-off system.5 What makes SIVA a truly unique system is its ability to operate without human intervention, that is: once the mission parameters have been set, the on-board computer would carry out the mission completely independently of the human factor. SIVA systems have also been used by the Air Force since 2012 to equip the Unmanned Aerial Systems School of the Matacán Group of Schools.6

Characteristics

The UAV can be launched conventionally, using a fixed tricycle landing gear and taking of by its own means from a flat surface, or with a peumatic launcher.

For its recovery, the system can land using the same landing gear or by means of a drogue parachute and several airbags.

Operators

• Spanish Army:Regimiento de Artillería de Campaña nº 63 since 2006
• Spanish Air and Space Force: Unmanned Aerial Systems School since 2012

Operational History

SIVA on launching tube.

The 20th of September 2006, the first units were formally received by the Spanish Army in a ceremony in Torrejón de Ardoz. Along with the UAVs, 26 officers and sub officers were awarded certifications to operate and maintain them, having completed a 11 moth course.

During February 2007, the planes began testing rounds in San Gregorio, Zaragoza. They were evaluated in roles of search and rescue, fire suppression and hostage situations. In addition, they were also tested in different environmental conditions such as nocturnal flight. The Army also expressed interest in collaborating with the Civil Guard and civilian organizations in order to use the UAV in an anti illegal immigration role.

The aircraft was officially presented to the public in the military parade of the National Day of Spain 2007.

The first units were integrated into the Grupo de Artillería de Información y Localización de Objetivos III (GAIL) belonging to the Regimiento de Artillería de Campaña nº 63 (63rd Field Artillery Regiment) to serve in a spotting and target correcting role. Later, in 2012, some units were transferred to the Air Force in a UAV training capacity.

Between the 22nd and 26th of April 2013, the SIVA completed the first fully automated flight in an exercise in the base "Conde de Gazola" in San Andrés del Rabanedo. It was the first of its kind since the establishment of a legal framework for fully autonomous flights in Spain in 2012.

The 3rd of June 2016 a SIVA belonging to INTA and with base in Matacán suffered and accident that forced the deployment of its recovery parachute. It safely landed on Calvarrasa de Abajo suffering minimal damage. The aircraft was been flown from the Escuela de Sistemas Aéreos no Tripulados belonging to the Spanish Air Force.

Technical data

SIVA with launching system and grounds control 2008.

General characteristics

• Length: 4.02 m
• Wingspan: 5.81 m
• Height: 1.6 m (1.15 m without landing gear)
• Wing surface: 3 m²
• Weight: 300 kg
• Fuel capacity: 60 kg
• Payload weight: 40 kg
• Powerplant: 1 × Rotax 503 2T/500 cm3 boxer engine of 49.6 kW (37 hp).
  • Propeller: two-blade, 1,35 m diameter

Performance

• Maximum speed: 190 km/h
• Cruise speed: 150 km/h
• Range: 150 km
• Autonomy: 6.5 h (fully loaded)
• Service ceiling: 4,000 m (13,100 ft)
• Take-off area: 560x18 m

Avionics

A selection between the following:

• GRIP Multi-frequency GNSS receiver, featuring Galileo’s AltBOC signal reception
• VISIONA Camera- and LiDAR-based navigation system, and input provider for HDA tasks
• CAPTURA Miniaturized INS/GNSS acquisition system and time-reference server
• Fault-tolerant Processing Architecture LEON3-based processing architecture including INS/GNSS/image processing software
• Prosilica GC2450C Camera for online image processing tasks
• Hokuyo UTM- 30LX LiDAR for online digital elevation model generation
• Sony NEX-5N Camera for high-resolution observation
• EPSON M- G350-PD11 Low-cost miniaturized IMU
• Javad TR-G3T Geodetic-grade, multi-frequency GNSS receiver

See Also

• Sirtap