Draft:K1000ULE

The K1000ULE UAS is an Ultra Long Endurance, UAV platform produced by American manufacturer Kraus Hamdani Aerospace.

Overview
Kraus Hamdani Aerospace was founded in 2016 by Stefan Kraus and Fatema Hamdani. Their aerospace and engineering team designed, built, and flew the K1000ULE aircraft as per design specifications provided by the United States Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory to fulfill long endurance and long range Group-2 UAS operations while supporting various military interoperability standards for payloads and communications.

K1000ULE
The K1000ULE (Revision-P) is a Technology Readiness Level-9 (TRL9) and Manufacturing Readiness Level-9 (MRL9) fully electric autonomous Group-2 Tactical Unmanned Aerial System (TUAS). The K1000ULE gives multi-day endurance while providing multiple tactical capabilities. It can be field-configured for fixed-wing or Vertical Takeoff and Landing VTOL operations, providing runway-independent in-theater capabilities. The K1000ULE can overcome adversarial A2/AD capabilities and operate in Global Positioning System GPS denied environments. The K1000ULE can operate up to 20,000ft Mean Sea Level (MSL) and provides Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance ISR, Electronic Intelligence ELINT, Electronic Warfare (EW), Geospatial Intelligence GEOINT, and other “plug and play” payload options. The K1000ULE can provide Joint Range Extension (JRE) Tactical Data Link (TDL) capabilities to enable real-time information flow across the entire battle-space between dissimilar TDLs, voice systems, computer networks, and radio technologies through communications relay, radio bridging, and tactical data translation (i.e. Link 11, Link 16, VMF, REAP, CoT, BFT, CPCE) in line-of-sight (LOS) and beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) situations.

The K1000ULE complies with the Special Operations Command SOCOM Modular Payload Standard facilitating rapid in-field payload integration and plug-and-play payloads. The K1000ULE, supporting equipment, and Ground Control Station GCS are Modular Open System Approach (MOSA) compliant to provide ease of upgrade and payload interchangeability to meet a Commanders’ mission requirements.

With onboard Artificial Intelligence, the K1000ULE provides smart mission based swarming capabilities to enable a critical communications tier in the absence of established networks and connectivity. To achieve this, multiple K1000ULE aircraft work together to solve complex communications issues.

In July 2023, the K1000ULE set a new world-record for Group-2 UAS endurance of 75 hours and 53 minutes airborne.

Weighing below 55 lb, it has a 20 ft (6 m) wing span with capacity for multiple concurrent payloads.

It has demonstrated endurance of 75 hours and a service ceiling up to 20,000 ft.

The K1000ULE is launched either using a vehicle supported by a basic launch cradle. It lands using replaceable landing skids designed to withstand impact on unprepared surfaces.

The K1000ULE can carry a 7 lb (3.1 kg) payload and provide up to 1kW burst power to payloads.