BAE Systems Taranis

The BAE Systems Taranis is an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) technology demonstrator that was primarily developed and built by the British defence contractor BAE Systems Military Air & Information. Other contributing companies included Rolls-Royce, GE Aviation Systems, Smiths Aerospace, and QinetiQ. It is named after the Celtic god of thunder Taranis.

Taranis is designed to fly intercontinental missions autonomously while carrying a variety of weapons that would enable it to attack both aerial and ground targets. Its use of stealth technology reportedly achieves a low radar profile and is controllable via satellite link from anywhere on Earth. Similar in size to the BAE Hawk training jet, Taranis was designed to incorporate and validate stealth technology, fully autonomous operations, systems integration, and control infrastructure.

The existence of Taranis was announced in December 2006 and the assembly of the prototype commenced in February 2008. A series of taxi trials were performed at multiple locations during 2012. On 10 August 2013, the prototype performed its maiden flight. During December 2015, it was announced that the third and final set of flight tests had been completed and that it had achieved all of the established test objectives. In the mid 2010s, Taranis was reportedly planned to be operational "post 2030" and used alongside manned military aircraft. Subsequently, it was intended for the experiences and technologies gained from Taranis to be combined with the French-built Dassault nEUROn UCAV demonstrator to create a joint European UCAV, the Future Combat Air System.