Sagem has successfully completed a series of flight tests of its longendurance surveillance drone, Patrollerâ„¢.

These 14 test flights, carried out at the Istres air force base in southern France from September 19 to October 21, met the following objectives:

- Qualification of the aircraft's in-flight performance, including automated landings at a steep glide slope.
- Integration of a new data link for taxiing, and a new, higher-performance imaging chain for target identification.
- Qualification of new flight control functions supporting degraded operating modes, as well as automated touchdowns in case of actuator or propulsion system failure.

The redundant avionics suite showed a significant improvement in flight safety, enabling Patroller to receive authorization from French authorities to overfly densely populated zones in controlled airspace.

The Patroller drone was also operated over the Mediterranean Sea to test operational maritime and coastal surveillance scenarios, representing missions for homeland security and to combat illegal immigration.