Qinetiq Launches Jackdaw UAS Concept to Provide Significant and Affordable Combat Mass and Battlespace Capabilities

QinetiQ today announces the launch of Jackdaw, a low-cost, high-performance ‘disposable’ uncrewed aerial system (UAS).

Designed for swarming and collaborative autonomous operations including crewed-uncrewed teaming, Jackdaw will fulfil multiple missions including reconnaissance, electronic warfare, airborne decoy and threat representation.

Jackdaw will enable our armed forces to reduce operational risk and increase combat mass by rapidly deploying large numbers of UAS in scenarios currently dependent upon small numbers of expensive crewed aerial platforms. By teaming large numbers of Jackdaw with other UAS and crewed platforms, mission effectiveness will be enhanced, the threat to human lives mitigated and the cost of conducting operations significantly reduced.

Mick Andrae, Global Campaign Director, Robotics & Autonomous Systems, QinetiQ commented: “The Jackdaw concept leverages QinetiQ’s expertise in very low-cost high-performance aerial targets - such as the Banshee family - and is enhanced with autonomous mission management and human-machine teaming capabilities. Critically, Jackdaw’s autonomous goal-based mission management system is intended to integrate with NATO and allied open architectures, ensuring interoperability with existing and future crewed and uncrewed systems. This, combined with the very low-cost aerial target design philosophy, makes Jackdaw highly suitable for use as a disposable UAS in air, maritime and land domain applications.”

Whilst Jackdaw is designed to be reusable, its low-cost disposable characteristics enhance operational flexibility by providing commanders with the option to sacrifice assets when needed.

In collaboration with other organisations, including BAE Systems and Inzpire, Jackdaw forms part of a family of UAS which will operate together seamlessly and coherently, aiding a more agile deployment and easier management from a central operations centre.