Airborne C4ISR

The U.S. Navy recently completed a portion of developmental testing of the Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) electronic warfare (EW) pod. Moving to flight testing with Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 by late June or early July 2020, the program is scheduled to reach Milestone C by the end of this fiscal year and expected to become operational in 2023.

OPAL - a decentralized battle management system that enables interconnectivity, data sharing in real-time, enables military forces to meet the challenges of the modern combat arena.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to demonstrate the Air Force Research Lab’s “Agile Condor” capability using a company-owned MQ-9 Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA). The testing will determine the optimum artificial intelligence and machine learning methodologies to find, identify and track select targets. Agile Condor also has the potential to dramatically reduce satellite bandwidth requirements as a result of its ability to automatically identify, classify, and nominate targets of interest.

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, the Missile Defense Agency, and the U.S. Air Force successfully connected an F-35, U-2 and a ground station in a ground-breaking test demonstrating a secure distribution of sensitive information across multiple platforms, facilitating true multi-domain operation. During the demonstration, called Project Riot, an F-35 detected a missile launch at long range, using standard onboard sensors. It then shared that information through the U-2 gateway, providing an early warning to an air defense center on the ground, enabling the commander to quickly make the decision to target the threat.

BIRD Aerosystems will enhance the performance of ASIO SMA already operated by the customer, by upgrading their Mission Management System (MSIS), adding sensor enhancements, and improving connectivity and data sharing within the task force.

Australia commits to buy six Northrop Gruman MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drones, to be fielded beginning in 2023, at an investment of $1.4 billion. The Tritons will operate with manned aircraft to enhance Australian anti-submarine warfare, maritime strike, and search and rescue capabilities.

Elbit Systems unveiled today an advanced capability that has been operational for several years with the military forces of several nations, in homeland security and the war on terror. Using a single payload integrating multiple cameras that together provides an image built from billion pixels, SkEye enables users to simultaneously look, and zoom in or out into 10 Regions of Interest (ROI), using different viewing angles. At any time they can ‘look back in time’ to analyze how a situation unfolds.

Northrop Grumman and United Technologies Corp. have recently completed the first flight test of the MS-177 long-range, multi-spectral imaging (MSI) sensor on the RQ-4B Global Hawk Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). The MS-177 sensor is designed to provide capabilities to not only "find" targets using broad area search and different sensing technologies, but to also fix, track, and assess targets through its agility and multiple sensing modalities.

An MQ-9 'Reaper' Block 5 Unmanned aircraft demonstrated the use of Radar Warning Receiver (RWR), as part of an airborne demonstration of the drone's capability to operate on the edge of 'contested airspace'.

The miniaturization of electronic and electro-mechanical systems, including sensors, computers, and flight controls enable designers to create ‘flying sensors’. This article introduces three such sensors designed specifically for military operations.

Elbit Systems introduce today the Skylark C - the first naval member of its electrically powered mini-UAV family. Based on the operational and combat-proven Skylark I-LEX Mini UAS, the naval variant extends the Skylark reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities to the maritime domain.

The German forces will soon deploy Heron 1 Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to Mali. Airbus Defense and Space announced yesterday it had signed a contract with the German Defence Procurement Agency (BAAInBw) to provide such surveillance drones in support of the Bundeswehr missions in Africa.

L-3 Mission Integration has conducted the maiden flights of the first Beechcraft King Air 350ER aircraft to be converted into a special mission platform under the US Army's Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS) program.

The Triton recently demonstrated its ability to share the video with the navy’s P-8A Poseidon, as both platforms were airborne and far away from each other. The Air Forces’ Block 30 Global Hawk was also updated, to carry new mission payloads.