Textron‘s [TXT] AAI yesterday said it has completed fee-for-service operations on behalf of the Army by executing numerous missions using its Aerosonde Mark 4.7 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) and the Orbiter UAS, manufactured by Aeronautics of Israel, in support of emerging concepts and capabilities demonstrations.
“Our Aerosonde Mark 4.7 and Orbiter UAS offer robust capabilities with small logistics footprints, making them easy to transport, launch and recover, even in austere or shipboard environments,” Stephen Flach, AAI’s division vice president for small UAS, said in a statement. “We are continuously incorporating new features into our systems, such as On-the-Move Command and Control, to deliver even greater mission flexibility, performance and value to customers like CERDEC.”
CERDEC is the Army’s Communications-Electronics Research, Development, and Engineering Center that hired AAI’s experienced UAS operators to support its annual Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) On-the-Move (OTM) program.
Over several weeks, the Aerosonde Mark 4.7 and Orbiter UAS performed a variety of mission profiles, including communications relay and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), to support customer evaluation of future force concepts such as soldier radio waveform (SRW) and a company/squad-level quick-reaction ISR force.
In one scenario, the customer employed Aerosonde aircraft to link more than 40 separate mounted and dismounted SRW nodes using the Aerosonde Mark 4.7 aircraft’s communication relay capability. Operators also executed dual communications relay missions by flying two Aerosonde aircraft simultaneously, while one of those aircraft also flew with an ISR payload.
The AAI aircraft and operators also achieved additional milestones during the CERDEC C4ISR OTM Event 2010, demonstrating the performance of AAI’s On-the-Move Command and Control capability, which allowed both the Aerosonde and Orbiter aircraft to be controlled by personnel in a moving ground control station.
In addition, AAI matured its “hub and spoke” concept, enabling the transfer of airborne aircraft between ground control stations.
Both Aerosonde and Orbiter UAS also demonstrated their interoperability with the AAI-designed One System Remote Video Terminal, currently in service with the Army, through transmission of full-motion video data to the command network.
AAI is the exclusive marketing representative for the Orbiter UAS in the United States.
The company said that as a full-service UAS provider, its skilled, experienced operators and maintainers also are available to provide customers seamless fee-for-service operations.
“Customers can benefit from fee-for-service UAS support for several reasons,” Diane Giuliani, vice president of Logistics & Technical Services said. “In this case, our CERDEC customer required UAS services for a pre-determined timeframe to demonstrate specific capabilities.”
“Contractor-owned, contractor-operated UAS also can supplement the ISR power of existing customer systems, or implement those capabilities for new customers quickly,” Giuliani added. “The flexibility our skilled crews provide, coupled with AAI’s range of mature UAS, are a win-win for customers who need fast, reliable UAS support.”