Cassidian has detailed its latest achievements in the unmanned air system sector, following the completion of a new series of test flights in Canada using its Barracuda technology demonstrator.
A total of five flights were performed from Goose Bay in Newfoundland and Labrador in June and July, with the Barracuda having been airborne at the same time as a manned Learjet, which was acting as a surrogate UAS. The work was conducted as part of the agile UAV in a network-centric environment research and development programme.
"The two aircraft flew missions where they each had different role profiles that were autonomously co-ordinated and synchronised with one another," Cassidian says. "The test flights delivered vital information regarding flight with several networked UAS and the autonomous distribution of roles between unmanned aerial vehicles in complex mission scenarios."
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Cassidian says that by using a data link "the flight-test engineers transmitted not only individual new waypoints, but also entire mission segments from the ground station to the UAS in flight, which immediately responded to its new instructions".
The latest flight-test campaign with the Barracuda builds on trials of sense-and-avoid equipment conducted with the aircraft at the Goose Bay site in July 2010.
Source: Flight International
