In a speech at the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) Innovation meeting, President Erdoğan announced that the mass production of ASELFLIR-500T, developed by ASELSAN as a solution to embargoes, will start in 2024.
Electro-optical reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting systems developed for use in UCAVs will end foreign dependency on exports.
Following Operation Peace Spring, which was launched in 2019 to prevent the formation of a terrorist corridor in Syria, Canada imposed an embargo on these E/O systems.
In response to the embargo, ASELSAN started the production of two systems called CATS and ASELFLIR-500.
The first fruits of these studies were obtained with the CATS Project, and mass production started in 2021. Of the 160 CATS systems produced, 60 have been exported abroad.
ASELFLIR-500 electro-optical reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting system was developed for fixed and rotary wing aerial platforms, including unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters and aircraft.
ASELFLIR-500, whose development work started in 2021, made its first flight in March 2023.
