During the Teknofest 2023 exhibition held in Istanbul (Türkiye), Turkish drone specialist Baykar unveiled a new loitering munition – mini light cruise missile for arming various types of UAVs, called KEMANKEŞ.
Designed to be used from Bayraktar TB2, TB3 and AKINCI-type UAVs, the KEMANKEŞ munition will be able to engage tactically valuable targets, such as air defense systems, from safe distances.
Yeni çağın dijital akıllı mühimmatı Bayraktar #KEMANKEŞ 🚀
Bayraktar #KEMANKEŞ loitering munition:
Advanced, autonomous, and accurate#TEKNOFEST2023 🚀 pic.twitter.com/DbC6BRlJQY— BAYKAR (@BaykarTech) April 27, 2023
Characteristics
This mini cruise missile is 1.73 meters long and has a wingspan of 1.25 meters when its wings are deployed. It weighs 30 kilograms, of which 6 kg is its warhead.
Powered by a jet engine, KEMANKEŞ can fly for 1 hour at 370 km/h, reaching a top speed of 864 km/h (mach 0.7) when diving over a target.
The munition uses an anti-jamming satellite navigation system (GNSS). To recognize and aim at its targets it has a two-axis stabilized camera system with a 36x magnification zoom and a laser rangefinder with a range of 2.8 kilometers. In addition, it uses artificial intelligence algorithms to process images and recognize its targets.
The KEMANKEŞ loitering ammunition is at the advanced testing stage and serial production is expected to begin by the end of the year.
See also: First flight of the Turkish Hürjet advanced trainer
Future developments
It is expected, in the future, to increase the range of the munition to 100 kms. Baykar is believed to be working on heavier, longer-range guided munitions to arm its unmanned drones, following lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, where current laser-guided munitions were shown to have insufficient range to ensure the safety of the launching drone.
