Ukrainian army operating Peruvian CW-40D ISR drones jointly produced with Chinese company

As reported by UAS Vision, in January 2023, the armed forces of Ukraine and Peru acquired CW-40D intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) from Diseños Casanave, a Peruvian company. The number of drones sold is undisclosed.

The CW-40D is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drone with fixed wings, designed specifically for ISR operations. It is powered by a hybrid engine that combines electric battery and gasoline technologies. Jouav's involvement in the production of the CW-40D reflects its Chinese origins.

The CW-40D design consists of a short fuselage with two fixed-wing and four-rotor used to conduct vertical take-off and landing. During its flight, the drone is propelled by a four-stroke gasoline engine fitted with a two-blade rotor. The drone can fly at a maximum speed of 150 km with endurance from 8 to 10 hours. It can reach a maximum altitude of 4,000 m and can be controlled up to a maximum distance of 200 km. The fuselage of CW-40D has a length of 2.3 m while the wingspan is 4.6 m.

Equipped with the state-of-the-art MG-170E EO/IR/LR triple sensor stabilized gimbal camera which is integrated with a visible light sensor, infrared sensor, and laser rangefinder, CW-40 can be used for various application scenarios, such as intelligence reconnaissance, rescue and searching, anti-smuggling, border patrolling, environmental monitoring, forest fire prevention.

Operators can also navigate the CW-40 while using the Jouav EagleMap with integrated features of mission planning, video surveillance, real-time mosaic, AI processing, multi-station networking, remote take-off & landing, etc, which offers real-time situational awareness and actionable intelligence.

According to Diseños Casanave, each CW-40D drone is priced at approximately USD 155,000. The drone comes equipped with an MG170E-type camera featuring an electro-optic sensor, dual field-of-view lenses, 1,080-pixel video resolution at 50 Hz, 30x zoom capability, a 640×512 infrared sensor resolution, distance measurement accuracy of ±2 m within a range of 50–4,000 m, and a shock absorber and inertial stabilized turret system.