Why Artesh use their own stupid stuff, when they have much better things with the IRGC. They have like 20 redundant systems and have no ability to innovate at all. 20 years with the Karrar design and they do barely anything new to it.
the problem is if they want something in concept of a loyal wingman , they need to have something that can keep up with their airplane , right now IRGC is more focused on endurance and stealth , but the fastest of their drone has only had around of 1/3rd of the speed of a fighter jet , so they are not suitable for air force.I agree they can do a lot more with karrar , they can lower its RCS, they can add more lift surface to it to help it carry more , they can add some conformal fuel storage to it to higher its endurance . but if they are going to use it as a loyal wingman , i don't think adding a radar to it is such priority , that would be nice but first a strong data-link is more important.
about drones like shahed-129 and Kaman-22 , its right that Shahed-129 is around 10 years old but IRGC didn't really provide any upgrade to it untill they built shahed-149 and i still doubt we can mass produce that shahed-149 as the engine is still a mystery to me my guess it probably recycled from another airplane but i can't be sure all aside Kaman-22 is a lot more refined version compared to Shahed-129 . it is the upgrade that IRGC must have done to shahed-129 . it use the same engine but due to more advanced aerodynamic it has better lift , it can carry more , fly higher , and stay up longer.
about smaller uav, well we technically have Shahed-123, Anbabil-2-5, Mohajer 4-6 , Kaman-12
and only Shahed-123 and Mohajer 4 are made by IRGC . Mohajer-6 and Ababils are defence ministry and Kaman-12 is air force . that's were its hilarious , they must take 1 or two and focus on them and ditch the rest
about suicide UAVs its also the same case Meeraj-504 , Shahed-136, different type of Ababils , Kyan , Arash, .......
the two last area i blame IRGC, Army and defence ministry for having a lot of parallel project even in one branch of armed force but i cant blame Air force for kaman-22 as it was an upgrade that was necessary and nobody was willing to do. more than anybody else i blame defence ministry for wasting money on projects like Fotros , or don't provide enough money to project like eagle-ray UAV so in fact all the money they spend there is gonna be wasted.