BEIRUT — There were plenty of new drones on display at the SAHA Defense Expo in Istanbul, and local defense contractor STM was no exception, debuting four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and an unmanned underwater vehicle.
A Turkish company has unveiled a unidirectional attack unmanned aerial vehicle called Kuzgun. It is a fixed-wing loitering weapon with a range of over 1,000 km (621.4 miles). According to the company, the drone is equipped with a high-performance fragmentation warhead and has a speed of 180 km/h. The drone has similar design features to Iran’s Shahed 136.
“Use that [in] STM general manager Ozgur Greliuz told Breaking Defense, adding that the platform is currently being tested, while Kuzgun said: “There are no contracts at the moment, but there is great interest.”
STM also exhibited the TOGAN-M mini reconnaissance and surveillance UAV system. The company said it weighs just 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) and has a foldable design. According to STM, UAVs are specialized for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
The Turkish engineering firm also announced its largest family of autonomous unmanned underwater systems, called Tengiz, which has large torpedo launch capabilities and can carry smart loitering weapons.
The company says the system is 11.2 meters (36.7 feet long), capable of operating at a speed of 8 knots at depths of 400 meters, and capable of performing both ISR and combat missions, including anti-submarine warfare and electronic warfare. Additionally, STM is continually updating its platform and technology, Guleruz said.
“We’re already using things like artificial intelligence, image processing and machine learning, but we’re also going deeper into those areas,” Greleuse said.
He added that STM is “an engineering company. We are the largest shipbuilding company in Turkey, but we don’t have our own shipyard. Similarly, on the UAV side, we use subcontractors to build our business, so our production facilities are very small. We just integrate them and ship them to our customers, and in that sense we are really open to all kinds of technology transfer.”
Gule Ryuz explained that STM is looking to support localization in other Middle East and Gulf countries.
“We have already signed several MOUs [Memoranda of Understanding] However, we are a Turkish state-owned company and one of the missions given to STM in the Turkish defense sector so far has been to increase the local contribution in our products. ” he said.
He highlighted different models for possible cooperation with Gulf countries. “We’re really committed to producing something locally. If a technology is being developed in a Gulf country and we want our support, we can use that technology to try and develop a country-specific drone, or we can produce it locally directly. Or we can produce STM-designed drones in those countries. And we’re very open to this kind of collaboration.”
