UNMANNED SYSTEMS UPDATE
10 Jul 08. Oxley Developments Company Ltd has entered the UAV market having recently secured an order to supply a suite of LED external navigation and
anti-collision lights for the BAE Systems HERTI UAV. Based on the operational requirements, Oxley has designed a custom suite of navigation, wing tip and anti-collision lights. Rugged, lightweight and low profile the HERTI lights use high intensity LED technology pioneered by Oxley to meet FAR/JAR 23 lighting requirements, including 400cd white anti-collision, in significantly smaller packages than hitherto. They are qualified to withstand shock, vibration and other environmental requirements specific to the aircraft The HERTI lights are coloured Aviation red, white and green as standard. NVIS friendly, covert and other customised solutions are also available. The lights provide known benefits associated with LEDs including zero maintenance, high Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) – typically 40,000 hours and low through life maintenance costs.
14 Jul 08. Boeing has selected QinetiQ as its key technology partner for the $3.8m phase one portion of the US DARPA Vulture air vehicle programme. QinetiQ’s world-leading knowledge in solar-electric Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) will play a key role in meeting DARPA’s objective to create a new category of ultra-long-endurance aircraft. The DARPA Vulture programme calls for developing technologies and ultimately a vehicle that can deliver and maintain an airborne payload on station for an uninterrupted period of more than five years using heavier than air vehicles.
15 Jul 08. Cobham plc and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. announce the creation of a Teaming Agreement to cover whole life support arrangements for UK Government GA-ASI products. This teaming arrangement will initially focus on the provision of support to the UK MoD MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft system (UAS) currently in operation with the Royal Air Force (RAF) over Afghanistan. The Team will develop support solutions that could be used by the UK MoD to offer increased flexibility and sovereignty over existing arrangements.
14 Jul 08. Goodrich Corporation’s new personal computer- (PC) based Intelligence Reference Library (IRL) software has proven its capability to integrate data from a number of unrelated systems into a comprehensive real time battlefield snapshot, day or night. The software is produced by Goodrich’s ISR Systems team in Malvern, UK. IRL’s proprietary software simultaneously catalogues and meshes data from a number of diverse sources such as the Goodrich DB-110 reconnaissance pod as well as non-Goodrich synthetic aperture radar, full motion video, and other sensors. As the sensors focus on a mission-specific geographic location, IRL formulates an extremely accurate “imagery intelligence picture” of actionable data on a ground-based work station or handheld PC. The system operates over a relatively narrow communication bandwidth, and provides detailed information on a wide range of target sets.
10 Jul 08. The Air Force is modifying a fixed price incentive firm contract not to exceed $324,600,000 with Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, Integrated Systems Air Combat Systems of San Diego, Calif. This contract will provide 2 RQ-4B Block 301 Global Hawk air vehicles, 3 RQ-4B Block 40 air vehicles with MP-RTIP sensor, 1 mission element, 1 launch and recovery element, and associated equipment; option for 4 EISS sensor payloads. At this time $180,351,181 has been obligated. 303 AESG/PK, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8620-07-C-4015 P00008).
18 Jul 08. QinetiQ graduate led team deliver innovative unmanned air vehicle as part of the MOD ‘Grand Challenge’ initiative. A team, led by a number of recently qualified engineers and scientists from QinetiQ’s Cortex early career training scheme, has entered an innovative and highly versatile unmanned air vehicle (UAV) for the MOD’s Grand Challe