Located at the corner of a nondescript crescent at Airport Industria, close to Cape Town International Airport, engineers and software developers are working on an unmanned aerial vehicle that can perform multiple roles, depending on the need.
Milkor, the company which developed and manufactures the Milkor 380, boasts that it is Africa's first category 4 and the largest unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) yet produced in Africa, and is in the same league as the US Predator drone.
This week the company is showing off its UAV at Africa's largest defence expo, the Africa Aerospace and Defence Trade and Exhibition, being hosted at Waterkloof Airforce Base in Pretoria.
Milkor is hoping to pitch its multi-faceted UAV to countries doing business at the expo, particularly BRICS countries.
The aircraft is capable of flying for 35 hours at 10 000m, carrying up to 210kg of external payloads for various types of sensors. Developed in less than five years, the company said it would be able to manufacture eight a year and hoped double this rate by the end of 2025.
Walking through the facility one sees the process of assembly from virtually testing the avionics through a flight simulator, where various weather scenarios are thrown at the UAV, to the integration stage, where wiring and equipment are fitted onto an empty shell which is brought from another facility, less than two kilometres away, where it is manufactured.
And unlike other shop floors, this one is eerily quiet, and surprisingly clean, resembling a SpaceX rocket factory.
The privately-owned company has been in existence since 1981 when it developed the six-shot grenade launcher, and has since branched into other areas in the defence industry.
While UAVs have played a prominent role in recent military conflicts, most recently in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado and in Ukraine, Milkor's head of business development, Daniel du Plessis said the development of the vehicle precedes those wars.
“It's a market that we saw garnering a huge interest in the last few years and one of the strategic assets that many countries would require to perform different types of operations, from warfare to actually just protecting your borders and sovereign territory.
“That's the reason we started investing into a project and a portfolio like this, garnering the capabilities and human resources and skills we need to be able to develop this platform and future platforms going forward,” says Du Plessis.
The unit cost of the Milkor 380 remains a company secret due to the competitive nature of the industry.
Training for pilots and ground staff is included in the unit price of the UAV, takes six months and will be hosted at the Milkor facility in Cape Town. On average, the size of a crew can range from 50 to 60 people.
Showing us around the secure, high-tech facility, Du Plessis says the Milkor 380 can be used for different scenarios including the commercial and civilian side.
“With the advancement of artificial intelligence, things like object detection and object identification and recognition are becoming more and more prevalent. The processing capabilities, in terms of imagery and videos and audio capabilities, are also advancing at a significant rate and many companies are following suit.”
One civilian use of the Milkor 380, would be to track objects such as suspected criminals on the ground using objection detection and identification technology.
He said the advancement of technology means the company is at the forefront of UAVs, and for this reason, took a decision more than five years ago, and the capability it has since developed, through trial and error, is of world-class standard.
“As a South African company we are quite proud to be based in Cape Town, employing South African engineers and people, and adding quite a lot of value to the economy.”
Milkor, Du Plessis said, is also on a recruitment drive for new engineers and IT specialists.
“We encourage youngsters in high school to pursue a career in either software development (or electronic capabilities in hardware and software) as well as mechanical and aeronautical engineering. But many fields pertain, this team is consistent of not only engineers and there's a lot of support elements that go with that.”
For the operation of the Milkor 380, the company also required aircraft maintenance engineers and payload operators and specialists.
“There's a lot of things, logistics is also a huge concern for us,” he said.
“When considering a career path, the defence sector is alive and well and doing extremely well in South Africa,” said Du Plessis who also just happens to be a mechanical engineer.
He says Milkor's developments are driven by market trends and the feedback it gets from end-users across the world.
“We have a strong team of young business developers that are essentially travelling the world and engaging with end-users so that we can be able to assist them in enhancing their capabilities in the defence and security clusters.
“A lot of the ideas and thinking behind the intended operations are, and what their force-planning indicates for the next five to ten years is typically brought back when we make such a decision.”
For this reason, he says the company might in the future bring out new platforms that are either larger or smaller than the Milkor 380.