A Textron Aerosonde Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (UAS) vehicle, named Buck G, returns to the Expeditionary Sea Base ship USS Hershel “Woody” Williams (ESB-4) from a 10- hour night surveillance in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 26, 2020. (Photo: U.S. Marine Corps by Sgt. Megan Roses/Released)

The Navy this week issued a  Request for Information (RFI) that aims to increase the number of partners to provide small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) performing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions for the Navy and Marine Corps.

The Jan. 21 RFI said the Navy is working to ultimately competitively procure Contractor Owned Contractor Operated (COCO) services to provide UAS ISR services for the Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems (STUAS) Program Office (PMA-263).

This follows the Navy’s initial notice on the issue in December, when it previewed a January virtual industry day, which was planned to be followed by two RFI’s to assess potential vendors capable of meeting current ISR requirements and future ISR requirements, respectively. The latest RFI covers expanding current requirements.

The industry day occurred on Jan. 16, after it was postponed from Jan. 8. 

The latest notice pointed out the current COCO UAS ISR services are being delivered under March 2021 performance-based Basic Ordering Agreements (BOAs) with Boeing’s Insitu, Inc. and Textron Systems. It said these firm-fixed-price contracts will expire in March 2026 and the RFI aims to award more BOAs to follow the current contract periods.

The RFI said contractors will be responsible for resources to produce sensor data like trained personnel, non-developmental UAS equipment, certifications, operation and maintenance, spares and product support.

“Contracted services would be in direct support of ISR missions requiring around the clock imagery and other sensor capability in support of those missions. Contractors shall be capable of providing ISR services on a normal and surge basis, day and night, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” the notice said.

The notice updated minimum requirements for the ISR services, including maintaining a 75 nautical mile range from a ground control station at land-based launch sites with a single vehicle or sea -based operations, 10-hour time on station at maximum range, ability to operate in a GPS-contested or degraded situations up to a minimum of 74dB for all flight phases, operate with commonly available fuels at forward-deployed locations, and operate at technology readiness level (TRL) eight. 

Interested parties are to submit brief capability statement packages by Feb. 5. 

The submissions should list factors including experience with ISR services; TRL of a candidate UAS; system anti-jam capabilities; details of air vehicle operations, range, and fielding requirements; software information; infrastructure requirements and provide sparing requirements based on 9,000 flight-hours per year per site for land-based and 2,400 flight-hours per year for ship-based ISR services.

A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.

The post Navy Issues RFI To Expand Unmanned ISR appeared first on Avionics International.

Two F-22 Raptors fly above Florida’s Tyndall Air Force base. (U.S. Air Force, photo by Thomas Meneguin)

Lockheed Martin said on Wednesday that it has received a $270 million U.S. Air Force contract to integrate the Infrared Defensive System (IRDS) on the company’s fifth-generation F-22 Raptor fighter.

The company said that IRDS has a number of “newly developed” tactical surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking sensors “to enhance aircraft survivability and lethality.”

“In addition to managing integration of IRDS on the F-22, the company will also support integration on other platforms,” Lockheed Martin said.

While the Air Force’s manned Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter has an uncertain future, the service is moving forward with upgrading sensors on the F-22.

Last August, the Air Force awarded RTX‘s Raytheon a nearly five-year contract that could be worth more than $1 billion for work in McKinney, Texas to upgrade sensors for the F-22.

The Air Force plans to retire its older, 32 Block 20 F-22s, but is undertaking a program to upgrade the remaining 154 F-22 Raptors with new cryptography, an expanded open architecture, new weapons, the infrared search and track sensor, and a “Project Keystone” effort to install an advanced threat warning receiver.

The program is to cost more than $4.3 billion between fiscal 2023 and 2029.

“The F-22 team is working really hard on executing a modernization roadmap to field advanced sensors, connectivity, weapons and other capabilities that are relevant to the INDOPACOM theater,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Jason Voorheis, the program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, said last July.

“The Raptor team recently conducted six flight test efforts to demo and assess advanced sensors on the F-22 required to complete an ongoing rapid prototyping MTA for the program,” he said. “That will lead to a decision on the rapid fielding MTA in the near future.”

MTA refers to Middle Tier of Acquisition, which is also a reference to rapid prototyping.

Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet has pushed back on the views of the world’s richest man and top Trump adviser Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, who has said that manned fighters are a relic in the age of drones.

“I’m pretty sure that a $25,000 drone will have no effect on a Chinese J-20 [fighter] jet,” Taiclet said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif., last month. “When you see 400 J-20s coming across the Taiwan Strait, you better have 200 NGADs or F-35s or F-22s to meet them, or you will lose, and you will lose right away.”

A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.

The post Lockheed Martin Plans to Integrate New Defensive System on F-22 appeared first on Avionics International.

U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Jason Rueschhoff, 56th Fighter Wing commander, boards an F-35A Lightning II for his final flight on June 14th at Luke AFB, Ariz. (U.S. Air Force Photo)

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the program office for the Lockheed Martin F-35 are investing in digital engineering to speed development, as AFRL hosts a ribbon cutting for the Micro-Electronics Digital Engineering Infrastructure on Thursday at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.

AFRL’s DoD Supercomputing Resource Center is to house the new, advanced micro-electronics hardware.

The latter is part of a $70-million investment by the F-35 Joint Program Office and others in advanced, digital engineering, AFRL said.

“These upgrades are designed to accelerate the development of advanced technology and digital solutions to enhance warfighter readiness,” according to the lab. “AFRL’s partnerships with industry leaders have incorporated best commercial practices to significantly reduce development timelines and drive innovation. The upgraded infrastructure supports critical initiatives such as the F-35 program, Navy projects, DARPA and the Microelectronics Commons — a program managed by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense — as well as other Department of Defense projects.”

Faster development and fewer software setbacks look to be key for the F-35. The incoming Trump administration, backed by anti-manned fighter comments from top Trump adviser Elon Musk, may examine the F-35 program in-depth.

The fiscal 2025 defense authorization bill provides for a delay in the delivery of 20 of 68 F-35s in fiscal 2025 until the defense secretary submits a report on “certain corrective action plans and acquisition strategies that will improve research, development, testing, evaluation, production and sustainment issues and deficiencies identified across multiple areas within the F–35 program enterprise”.

The 48 F-35s authorized for delivery are 30 U.S. Air Force F-35As, nine U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs, and nine U.S. Navy F-35Cs.

The F-35 JPO has said that it wants to deliver a “fully combat capable” fighter next year with the Technology Refresh-3 software upgrade–the foundation for dozens of envisioned Block 4 weapons and sensors.

A significant part of the effort is rejuvenating laboratory capacity, and Lockheed Martin said that it will invest $350 million over five years in that capacity.

A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.

The post AFRL/F-35 Program Investing in New Digital Engineering Hardware appeared first on Avionics International.

AN/AAQ-28(v) LITENING targeting system pod. (Photo: Northrop Grumman.)

Northrop Grumman on Thursday announced the Marine Corps chose to use the company to modernize LITENING data links for its Boeing F/A-18 A-D Hornet aircraft.

This specifically means the company will provide Advanced Tactical Data Links (ATDL) to the electro-optical/infrared­ (EO/IR) targeting pods. The company said the ATDL will facilitate faster transfer speeds for more rapid decision-making compared to previous waveforms.

Northrop Grumman noted the ATDL for the LITENING pod will be the first tactical aircraft data link to use the Bandwidth Efficient Common Data Link (BE-CDL) waveform, “which enables faster communications.”

ATDL will specifically replace the current Plug-and-Play II data link and can be added to any fourth generation or newer LITENING pods. It includes an updated processor, software-defined radio, wideband antenna and improved data recorder. The company said this includes G4, SE, LDP, Color and Large Aperture pod variants.

LITENING EO/IR targeting pods detect, acquire, identify and track targets at extended ranges. It facilitates missions including precision targeting, air superiority, close air support, surveillance and humanitarian assistance. The company boasted the pod’s modular design allows upgrades to keep up with mission needs. 

“LITENING’s high-definition sensors on the advanced EO/IR targeting pod gather critical information, enabling more rapid decision making. The ATDL enhancement is like upgrading to better Wi-Fi by building on LITENING’s already proven data links, making live feeds immediately available on the ground – a critical capability in our modern environment,” James Conroy, vice president for navigation, targeting and survivability at Northrop Grumman, said in a statement.

Northrop Grumman said it has thus far delivered more than 900 LITENING pods to U.S. and international customers combined.

The company also noted this update comes after previous LITENING data link integrations like the NET-T, that operates like a secure airborne Wi-Fi router, Mobile Ad-hoc Networks and Freedom 550 radios to connect multiple users across various aircraft generations and domains.

The ATDL two-way multi-band link will allow transmission of video, still images on metadata, with operators in the air and on the ground both looking at the same live video feed at the same time. 

In October, Northrop Grumman said the LITENING pod finished its initial flight testing on the newer Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, putting it through maneuvers representative of operational situations.

A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.

The post Northrop Grumman To Modernize Marine Corps F/A-18 Data Links appeared first on Avionics International.

The Sierra Nevada Corp.’s unmanned Voly Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. (Image: Sierra Nevada Corp.)

Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) on Dec. 5 said the Navy awarded it a prototype other transaction (OT) agreement to develop the technology to support autonomous unmanned air transport capability for naval logistics purposes.

Under this award, SNC will use its artificial intelligence systems with its Voly vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) Unnamed Aerial System (UAS) to help the Navy with its project to improve light cargo resupply capabilities via unmanned systems, the Blue Water Maritime Logistics UAS program.

The program specifically looks to solve a Navy challenge in being able to deliver light cargo over long ocean distances to reduce the burden on manned aircraft.

SNC said it will help develop the technology to help support the Navy with an on-demand, autonomous, unmanned air transport delivery capability needed for the U.S. Navy’s fleet and Military Sealift Command (MSC).

“The autonomous movement of critical parts and supplies in distributed maritime operations increases operational readiness and warfighting capability of embarked ships or aircraft,” the company said.

The company boasted its Voly UAS is a hybrid vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft with payload, range and endurance capabilities needed for multi-role operations. SNC underscored the aircraft can simultaneously carry cargo, additional fuel and sensors.

“SNC is proud to partner with the Navy to develop this critical game-changing technology. Our Voly solution with its long-haul capability, provides the technological advancements needed for safe and reliable resupply to geographically dispersed maritime environments,” Josh Walsh, SNC vice president of programs, said in a statement.

In 2020 the Navy said historic data showed warships often moved into partially or non-mission capable status due to logistics issues like electronics parts or assemblies that usually weigh under 50 pounds. Missions to deliver these kinds of parts are currently performed by H-60 helicopters or V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, but this review  spurred the service to look into using Group-3 size UAS.

At the time, Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) had already acquired a Skyways Air Transportation Inc. drone for this Blue Water Maritime Logistics UAS experimental cargo transport.

SNC argued its unmanned VTOL aircraft has significant advantages over other UAVs or conventional fixed-wing aircraft for this kind of mission: they can perform point takeoff and landing with minimal space requirements, feature redundant lift motors and avionics, increased maneuverability, and the ability to land after engine or other catastrophic failures.

The company said its part in the Blue Water Maritime Logistics UAS program envisions Navy assets bringing large amounts of supplies to forward operating bases where fleets of unmanned aircraft can deliver needed parts to vessels in complicated maritime environments. This could help deliver the cargo to more widespread destinations.

“An unmanned resupply capability allows users to overcome the contested logistics challenges of the future and ensures forward-deployed units are stocked with parts and supplies needed for operations,” said Tim Harper, SNC vice president of business development. 

“The Voly hybrid UAS represents a new opportunity to completely disrupt how critical assets are delivered, by minimizing personnel and filling the gap where traditional delivery methods are unable to achieve the mission,” he continued.

Previously, in 2021 NAWCAD awarded PteroDynamics a contract to supply three of its VTOL drones for the Blue Water Maritime Logistics UAS program.

The Voly originated as a drone made by the former company Volansi, which SNC acquired in 2022.

A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.

The post Navy Picks SNC To Develop More Prototype Logistics Drones appeared first on Avionics International.

A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress with the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron takes off from RAF Fairford, England on Dec. 10th. The squadron returned to Barksdale AFB, La. after completing the Bomber Task Force deployment, the Air Force said (U.S. Air Force Photo)

Rolls-Royce said on Friday that its F130 engine passed a U.S. Air Force Critical Design Review (CDR)–a step “clearing the way for final development, test, and production efforts to proceed and taking another step toward delivering the upgraded B-52J” to the service.

The Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP) and Radar Modernization Program (RMP) are the Air Force’s key modernization efforts for the Boeing B-52H bomber. The modernized bombers will carry the B-52J designation.

The F130’s blessing in CDR “is the culmination of over two years of detailed design work and close collaboration between teams at Rolls-Royce, the Air Force and Boeing,” Rolls-Royce said on Friday. “The engine testing program is on track to begin altitude testing in February 2025 at the U.S. Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Complex in Tullahoma, Tennessee.”

Rolls-Royce said on March 1 last year that it had begun testing the F130 at the company’s outdoor testing site at NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The testing at NASA Stennis “marked the first time F130 engines were tested in the dual-pod engine configuration of the B-52 aircraft,” the company has said, and the Rapid Twin Pod Tests, which finished over the summer, “played a key role in validating Rolls-Royce’s analytical predictions, further de-risking the integration of the F130 engine onto the B-52J and meeting test goals,” Rolls-Royce said on Friday.

In September 2021, the Air Force awarded Rolls-Royce a CERP contract worth potentially $2.6 billion through fiscal 2038 to outfit the B-52 with the F130 engine, based on Rolls-Royce’s commercial BR725 carried on Gulfstream G650 business jets.

Under CERP, the Air Force is moving to put the Rolls-Royce F130 engines on the bomber to replace the B-52H’s Pratt & Whitney TF33-PW-103 engines, which the Air Force has said it wants to retire by 2030.

Rolls-Royce has said it may deliver more than 600 F130s for the eight-engine B-52 under CERP to extend the life of the venerable B-52 another 30 years–an extension which may mean that the B-52 becomes a centenarian. Rolls-Royce is to build the engines in its Indianapolis plant. The company said that it has invested $1 billion in recent years to modernize its manufacturing, testing, and advanced technology facilities in Indiana.

The Rolls-Royce CERP win in 2021 was significant for the company. For CERP, the Air Force wanted a new, commercial B-52 engine up to 30 percent more fuel efficient than the TF33.

In July, the Air Force said that it is undertaking a cost reduction effort for CERP and the RMP, which had not reached but was abutting a significant Nunn-McCurdy unit cost breach of 15 percent over the baseline.

The military services must notify the congressional defense committees of such cost breaches.

A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.

The post Rolls-Royce: F130 Engine for B-52 Passes CDR appeared first on Avionics International.

Pictured is the X-62A Variable Stability In-Flight Simulator Test Aircraft (VISTA) flying over Palmdale, Calif. on Aug. 26, 2022 (U.S. Air Force Photo)

The U.S. Air Force’s future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) may need a significant amount of processing power for sensors and mission autonomy, and the service and industry thus face a challenge of ensuring that the drones meet size, weight, and power constraints at an Air Force targeted unit cost of $30 million or less.

“When you start talking about, on the sensor processing side, [the need for] 20 to 25 teraflops, each teraflop is one trillion calculations in a second, ” Mike Shortsleeve, the vice president of strategy and business development at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, said at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’ inaugural Future of Airpower forum last Wednesday.

“That’s huge–just on the sensor side, dig through the clutter, find out what it [the object] is…a lot of compute processing power,” he said. “Things have gotten better–smaller, cheaper–to be able to do things, but, for us, the big aspect of this is on the sensing side where the bulk of that processing is gonna take place. What we have done, from a surrogate testing perspective, with this is we’ve looked at putting processing on one aircraft, and it feeds the others [aircraft]. We’ve done this in a live, virtual construct as well.”

“We’re trying to figure out different ways to make that happen,” he said of reducing SWaP-C–size, weight, power and cost–for CCA. “Processing, while the outlook is good, is still challenging.”

In April, the Air Force said that it had chosen General Atomics and another privately-held drone maker, Anduril Industries, for the first round of CCA–the so-called Increment 1. General Atomics offered its Gambit design and Anduril its Fury.

The first CCAs are to be air-to-air, but others may be those for intelligence or jamming missions. The Air Force has said that it plans to field 150 CCAs in the next five years to complement F-35s and possibly other manned fighters, including a manned Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft and the F-15EX.

The Air Force is refining its concept for CCA Increment 2 and has announced a buy of more Increment 1 CCAs.

“There is a huge opportunity to talk about data links [for CCA],” Mike Benitez, Shield AI‘s senior director of strategic product development and a former Air Force F-35 pilot, said at the Mitchell forum. “The data is so important. If you can make sense of that on something like a Wedgetail, an F-35, or an F-22, you can push that perception of the environment to the cognition core [on CCA], that is the real power of how you break the cost curve of these [CCA] platforms. Otherwise, you’re just going to have an unmanned F-35.”

Over the last four years, the Lockheed Martin X-62 Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft (VISTA)–an autonomous F-16–flew more than a dozen dog fights in tests with traditional fighters in DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution experiments, and, though the X-62 had no “perception” sensors of its own, it received situational awareness data about where the “bandits” were over a data pod on the X-62’s wing, Benitez said.

The post CCA Challenge: Accommodating Sensor Processing to Meet Size, Weight, Power, Cost Goals appeared first on Avionics International.

A battle manager sends real-time commands to AI-controlled aircraft during a flight test over Iowa. (Photo: Lockheed Martin)

Lockheed Martin this year has been conducting flight-tests of artificial intelligence-controlled aircraft in air-to-air engagements, including a more recent demonstration where a human “battle manager” aboard a fighter jet trainer commanded AI-controlled aircraft using a computer touchscreen.

The testing is being done by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works unit in partnership with the company’s Demonstrations and Prototypes organization, and the University of Iowa’s Operator Performance Laboratory.

In the tests, the battle manager aboard an L-39 Albatros assigned targets to two AI-controlled L-29 Delfin military jet trainers that worked together to defeat two mock enemy jets using simulated weapons. The AI software was developed by Skunk Works.

The AI-controlled aircraft flew with human pilots for safety purposes. The adversarial aircraft were also L-29s.

Earlier flight tests demonstrated AI-controlled air-to-ground jamming and geolocation, Lockheed Martin said on Thursday.

“The work we’re doing with the University of Iowa’s OPL is foundational for the future of air combat, where a family of crewed and uncrewed systems will work together to execute complex missions,” John Clark, vice president and general manager of Skunk Works, said in a statement.

The post Skunk Works Partnership Demonstrates Airborne Battle Management With AI-Controlled Aircraft appeared first on Avionics International.

Gray Eagle 25M. (Photo: GA-ASI)

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) last month completed the final qualification test for its new Heavy Fuel Engine (HFE) 2.0 set to power the upgraded Gray Eagle (GE) 25M drone.

Following the three-week qualification test for the 200-horsepower HFE 2.0 engine, GA-ASI said the next step is the Army certification process to also allow use of the engine on the service’s existing fleet of Gray Eagle Extended Range drones.

“This test is the culmination of the extensive durability and flight test program for the HFE 2.0 engine,” GA-ASI President David Alexander said in a statement. “It’s been great to see the outstanding test results that have validated the design and development of the HFE 2.0 engine we have worked on so passionately for the past seven years and to bring this world-class engine to the Gray Eagle fleet.”

Last month’s culminating qualification test occurred at the GA-ASI’s flight facility in El Mirage, California and was aligned with the Federal Aviation Administration’s endurance test requirements, according to the company.

“Over the last 18 months, HFE 2.0 excelled in strenuous durability testing that included 2,450 full power cycles simulating high stress conditions during three extensive test profiles of 200, 400, and 651 hours,” the company said in a statement. “Additionally, the engine completed 50 hours of flight testing across the flight envelope.”

GA-ASI has described the HFE 2.0 engine for its modernized Gray Eagle fleet as a “highly reliable low-maintenance engine with a 40 percent increase in service life providing longer maintenance-free operational period.”

In January, GA-ASI announced the first flight of its new Gray Eagle 25M UAS, which the company has noted which features the new HFE 2.0 engine and is designed with a Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) approach to allow for rapid integration of new capabilities, advanced datalinks and an upgraded propulsion system.

The first flight test of the Gray Eagle 25M, conducted in early December 2023, focused on testing flight critical operations and assessing the new variant’s HFE 2.0 engine and power generation systems.

GA-ASI has said the Gray Eagle 25M’s power generation system was designed in coordination with the Army’s Project Manager Endurance Uncrewed Aircraft System (PM EUAS), which it added will decrease “major maintenance actions and virtually eliminates the need for overhaul.”

The Army awarded GA-ASI a production contract for Gray Eagle 25M worth up to $389 million in early December 2023 and in late May the Army National Guard placed an order for 12 of the new drones.

GA-ASI last month noted it worked with General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems to design the HFE 2.0’s dual brushless generator, which it said will deliver over 50 percent more electrical power to support new payloads, will “dramatically reduce” field maintenance, and it’s designed as a “drop-in replacement” for the Gray Eagle’s existing generator.

The post GA-ASI Completes Final Qualification Test For Gray Eagle’s New HFE 2.0 Engine appeared first on Avionics International.

MQ-25 Air Vehicle Pilots Lt. Matt Pence (forward) and Lt. Steven Wilster conduct a test run to monitor the Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System ground control station, located at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., as the system commands the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) MQ-20 Avenger surrogate, located at the company’s test facility in California, in preparation for demonstration event in November 2024. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

The Navy tested command and control of an unmanned aircraft using its Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control Station (UMCS) for the first time this week in a demo using the  General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) MQ-20 Avenger and Lockheed Martin software.

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) said GA-ASI initiated this joint demonstration that on Nov. 5 had the Unmanned Carrier Aviation program office PMA-268 use its UMCS with the MD-5 Ground Control Station (GCS), loaded with the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works MDCX platform, command and control the GA MQ-20 Avenger.

GA said the MQ-20 technology demonstrator acted as a surrogate to demonstrate how the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control Station (UMCS) can command various unmanned aircraft with autonomous maneuvers. The Navy noted this proves the UMCS can command other aircraft beyond the under-development MQ-25 carrier-based unmanned tanker aircraft.

Navy operators used an MD-5 Ground Control Station (GCS) out of the Navy’s Patuxent River, Md., test facility to command and control the MQ-20 flown out of GA-ASI’s Desert Horizon flight operations facility in El Mirage, Calif.

The team was able to operate over this large distance by using an unspecified proliferated Low Earth Orbit (pLEO) satellite constellation datalink. 

NAVAIR said it will use the data from this demonstration to refine program requirements and develop more key technologies. The team plans to conduct more digital and live surrogate test flights to demonstrate various aspects of CCAs including autonomy, mission systems, crewed-uncrewed teaming, advanced communications and more command and control development.

Lockheed Martin boasted its Skunk Works MDCX autonomy platform enabled the Navy air vehicle pilots to control the MQ-20 during its California flight.

NAVAIR describes the UMCS as a system-of-systems required for MQ-25 command and control that should apply to other Navy unmanned aircraft control in the future. 

GA underscored this was the first time any General Atomics UAS conducted bi-directional communications using the UMCS operation codes while also performing autonomous behavior, using the pLEO datalink.

“UMCS is laying a foundation that will enable control of all unmanned carrier aircraft, starting with the MQ-25 aircraft. The UMCS opens the door for efficiently introducing future unmanned systems into the complex carrier command and control architecture,” Capt. Daniel Fucito, PMA-268 program manager, said in a statement.

“This was a huge step for unmanned naval aviation. This demo showcased UMCS’s first live control of an unmanned air vehicle, and it was great to be part of history in the making. The team is paving the way for integrating critical unmanned capability across the joint force to combat the high-end threat our warfighters face today and in the future,” Lt. Steven Wilster, MQ-25 AVP, added.

General Atomics characterized this demonstration as part of the overall effort to move technology forward for the future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), for which the Navy and Air Force intend future manned fighters to command several unmanned wingmen to perform missions. 

The Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force are collaborating under a Tri-service Memorandum of Understanding for critical subsystems for CCAs, with the Navy leading development of a common control architecture and GCS, in collaboration with Lockheed Martin.

GA-ASI said the MQ-20 is being used “extensively” as a surrogate CCA testbed for autonomous technology development.

In April, the Air Force downselected to GA and Anduril for CCA testing, with them both set to move forward on detailed designs, manufacture and testing of production-representative test articles for the CCA program.

“This effort was a prime example of industry partners and government agencies working together to perform important new capabilities. The team efficiently and safely demonstrated aircraft flight control from another government agency’s control station. Using GA-ASI’s Tactical Autonomy Core Ecosystem (TacACE) software, the team not only executed airborne commands, but did so in a safe, controlled environment,” GA-ASI president David Alexander, said in a statement.

John Clark, vice president and general manager at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, said they are happy to collaborate with the Navy to help move toward its air wing of the future vision.

“The MDCX made it possible to rapidly integrate the MQ-20 ‘autonomy core’ with the UMCS, demonstrating common control capability and third-party platform integration,” Clark said in a statement.

A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.

The post Navy Works With General Atomics And Lockheed Martin To Demonstrate Drone Control Station appeared first on Avionics International.