Sg started LALEE research in c1998 to replace E2C,among other purposes.
It will operating at 60000 ft. with endurance of 18 hr. LALEE is an integrated airborne surveillance and communications system designed to provide continuous temporal coverage over a very large area. Providing a task group operating in the littorals with continuous surveillance from the air with this class of UAV will be considerably cheaper than operating current generation of surveillance and communications platforms.Below are quotes and sources.
1.
http://www.dsta.gov.sg/home/DisplayPage/ContentPage10.asp?id=829
while four Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye airborne early-warning aircraft monitor air targets. However, both Maj Gen Lim and Prof Lui talk of rethinking such solutions.
"We will have to look at replacing the E-2C, which has been with us for 14 years. I think the time has come," says Maj Gen Lim. "There are a few options to look at. There could be completely new ways of meeting the requirement. It could evolve into two different sets of platforms to meet expanded operational capabilities."
One option is a system like the LALEE, studied for three years by a team under Lui. This unmanned air vehicle is described by Lui as "an integrated airborne surveillance and communications system to provide continuous temporal and very large spatial coverage". This would "provide a task group operating in the littorals with continuous surveillance from the air [at a cost] considerably cheaper than operating current-generation surveillance and communications platforms".
. 2.
http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2004/05/04/181242/Singapore+details+UAV+programmes.html
DATE:04/05/04
SOURCE:Flight International
Singapore details UAV programmes
Images of single fuselage vehicle displayed at conference; overall strategy to be based on "swarm and proliferation"
Singapore is continuing work on its Lalee long-endurance unmanned air vehicle requirement, but is some years from delivering a capability, says Maj Alfred Fox, director of the Singapore ministry of defence's newly established future systems directorate. To perform airborne early warning, maritime and ground surveillance, and communications relay duties, the high-altitude system will work alongside Singapore's existing military surveillance satellite programme.
Initial Lalee concepts released in 2001 were based on a twin tail- boom design, giving rise to speculation that the air vehicle would be a derivative of the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI)/EADS Heron/Eagle 1 system. However, during a 21 April presentation to the Unmanned Vehicles Asia Pacific conference in Sydney,
Fox displayed images of a single fuselage air vehicle with a large, underslung phased-array radar. The images indicate a radar configuration with a surveillance range of around 150km (80nm).
Fox says Singapore's overall UAV development strategy is based on "swarm and proliferation", and that its planned Fantail and Skyblade systems provide the most immediate focus. The army plans to acquire the Singapore Technologies Aerospace Fantail vertical take-off and landing UAV (VTUAV) to meet a requirement to conduct urban operations.
to be continued.