The Altius is a heavy Russian long-range drone with a maximum payload of over a ton. The UAV made its first flight in August 2019. In February 2020, the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the final version of the drone was named Altius-RU. The deployment of the production of a heavy reconnaissance and strike drone is planned to be carried out at the facilities of the Ural Civil Aviation Plant, which is currently engaged in development work on this topic.
"Altius" will teach you to think
Soon, a new heavy reconnaissance and strike drone "Altius" will appear in the arsenal of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which will receive elements of artificial intelligence (AI). The UAV will be able to operate autonomously without the participation of an operator, as well as independently interact with the promising Russian fifth-generation fighter Su-57. It is reported that the new reconnaissance and strike drone will be able, without the help of a human operator, to independently plot a route to a target or a given patrol area bypassing the air defense zones of a potential enemy, as well as detect and attack important ground targets: missile launchers, communication centers, headquarters. There is still no device with such capabilities at the disposal of the Russian Aerospace Forces. According to experts, the new drone will become a truly versatile weapon.
As the newspaper "Izvestia" reports, citing its own sources in the military-industrial complex, work has already begun in the country to create an updated version of the heavy reconnaissance and strike drone "Altius-RU". The new drone will receive elements of the AI system, and it will be possible to remotely control the device from the Su-57 fighter plane. It is reported that all the necessary equipment that will give the UAV its "brains" will be installed on the device by the end of 2020, after which the period of technical testing of the novelty will begin.
It is assumed that elements of artificial intelligence will give the device new capabilities, including the ability to attack ground targets on its own. Having received the coordinates of the target, the UAV, using its on-board computer, will be able to compose an algorithm for finding the optimal route to the target of the attack, and also calculate the most suitable point for dropping bombs. The drone will be able to do all this without the help of an operator, while the combat drone will receive in real time all information from the headquarters about the air situation and the location of enemy air defense facilities and build its flight, processing the incoming information. Having completed the combat mission, the heavy drone will be able to return to the base automatically along the safest route or return to the patrol zone and continue to solve reconnaissance missions.
It is worth noting that at present, military drones are trying to control operators working from the ground at all stages of flight. The AI elements installed on the Altius should help reduce the burden on operators of unmanned complexes, which is especially important during long flights and long patrols. For a large reconnaissance and strike apparatus, this is especially important, since such a UAV is able to stay in the sky for more than a day.
The use of a drone in conjunction with a modern fifth generation fighter jet is also a very important function. In September 2019, the Russian Ministry of Defense demonstrated for the first time an example of such interaction with the participation of the Su-57 and the 20-ton S-70 Okhotnik attack drone, which is currently the largest such device in our country. The Altius drone will also be equipped with the same ability to interact with a manned aircraft. Experts note that thanks to the instruments at his disposal, the pilot will be able to find targets and transmit their coordinates to the UAV through a secure communication line. After receiving information from the pilot, the drone will be able to start performing the combat mission in an independent mode without the participation of the operator.
Russian experts note that modern Russian drones, which include "Forpost" and "Altius", are already comparable in their characteristics with their Western counterparts. For example, in terms of its characteristics, "Altius" can compete in the world arms market with the American UAV MQ-9 Reaper ("Reaper"). At the same time, the use of drones in the armies of all countries will only increase in the future. Drones are already doing great in reconnaissance missions, allowing them to detect important targets that they can hit on their own. The development, construction and widespread use of reconnaissance and strike drones will help save human lives in the long term, saving people from unnecessary risk.
Technical capabilities of the drone "Altius-RU"
The modern Russian unmanned aerial vehicle "Altius-RU" (reconnaissance and strike) is the final version of the Altair drone, which has been created since 2011; at the final stage of work, it was also known as "Altius-U" (strike). By its design, the Altius-RU drone is a heavy long-range turboprop unmanned aerial vehicle.
At the same time, not all the technical data of the drone are still known today. For example, in February 2018, the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the heavy drone "Altius" could carry up to two tons of combat load. But today in the press, including on the thematic site of the Ministry of Defense "Zvezda", more and more often you can find other data on the payload of the device - up to 1000 kg.
The new Russian unmanned aerial vehicle "Altius" is built according to the classic aerodynamic design with a high wing span and a V-shaped tail. It is known that "Altius" was built with extensive use of composite structural materials. The power plant of the apparatus is represented by two turboprop engines located on the wing consoles, the engines set in motion two pulling propellers. Apparently, we are talking about the VK-800S engines developed at the Klimov Design Bureau. This engine is designed for installation on light aircraft and helicopters (VK-800V version) and delivers 800 hp takeoff power. The approximate wingspan of the drone is up to 30 meters, the length is about 12 meters, the take-off weight is more than six tons.
In 2019, the UZGA plant presented a modified version of the unmanned vehicle, which received a satellite communication system. With the use of such a system, the flight range of the Altius UAV is limited only by the fuel supply on board. According to experts, the emergence of such a system allows a reconnaissance and strike drone to conduct reconnaissance and attack targets at a distance of hundreds or thousands of kilometers from its base. It is known that in the sky "Altius" can stay from 24 to 48 hours, and the maximum range of its flight should be 10,000 kilometers. At the same time, the device will be able to conduct reconnaissance from a height of 12 thousand meters.
The features of the device also include its equipment with the SP-2 inertial navigation system, which should reduce the possibility of detecting the device in the air, providing the UAV with additional resistance to induced interference and work in conditions of electronic countermeasures from the enemy. It is assumed that as a weapon, the drone will be able to carry planning bombs "Grom-2" with a total mass of 598 kg (mass of a warhead 480 kg) and a launch range of 10-50 km or guided missiles "Grom-1" with a starting mass of 594 kg (mass of a warhead 315 kg) with a launch range of up to 120 km. This assumption was put forward by Izvestia journalists.
Altius has been created for nine years
"Altius" is classified as a heavy drones, it is one of the three large attack drones currently being developed in Russia. At the same time, "Altius" is an apparatus of a very complex fate. Work on it began back in 2011, but nine years later, the device is still not put into mass production, and the whole process of its development was accompanied by various problems and a loud scandal, the echo of which still walks around Kazan.
Initially (in 2011), an order for the development of a heavy unmanned aerial vehicle weighing up to five tons was issued to the specialists of JSC “NPO Simonov Experimental Design Bureau” in Kazan. The work was carried out jointly with the "Transas" company from St. Petersburg. The first public demonstration of the future drone model took place in February 2013. At that time, the drone was called "Altair".
Further, the project suffered two blows at once. The first is the sanctions imposed on Russia in 2014, which left the device without German diesel aircraft engines, which it was planned to equip all drones with. Information about the beginning of flight tests of experimental samples appeared only in 2016, and in 2017 it became known that the Simonov Design Bureau was experiencing a lack of funds to complete the project and continue work.
This was followed by a second blow. The immortal Russian plot was involved in the case. In April 2018, the court arrested the general director of the OKB im. Simonov Alexander Gomzin, whom the investigation suspected of embezzling 900 million rubles allocated for the development of a heavy drone. This story has not ended until now. At the same time, the OKB them. Simonov is under the threat of bankruptcy, and at the end of 2019, the Moscow Arbitration Court accepted the claim of the Russian Ministry of Defense against the former developer of the Altius drone, JSC NPO Experimental Design Bureau (OKB) named after I. Simonov”for a total amount of 643.8 million rubles.
Against the backdrop of a flaring up scandal and the beginning of a trial, the development of a new drone was moved from Kazan to Yekaterinburg. In December 2018, during a visit to Kazan, Alexey Krivoruchko, who is the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation in charge of the logistics of the armed forces, said that work on the heavy drone had been transferred to a new contractor. This is the Ural Civil Aviation Plant (UZGA), which has mastered the serial assembly of the Forpost drone, as well as its localized and modernized version of the Forpost-R.
In December 2019, the Russian Ministry of Defense signed a new contract with UZGA JSC to carry out R&D work on the Altius-RU unmanned aerial vehicle. This is the final version of the UAV, which the military and developers came to after all tests of the already released prototypes of the heavy drone. It is reported that this version will combine all the requirements of the military and the latest Russian achievements in the field of unmanned aircraft. This version should become the main one for the deployment of serial production and supplies to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. It is planned that it is Altius-RU that will enter service not only with the Aerospace Forces, but also with the Russian Navy.
