Lockheed Martin is to study sensor technologies for a large high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle (UAV) under contracts from the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The two contracts, totalling $1.5 million, are part of AFRL's SensorCraft UAV technology development programme.
SensorCraft is a notional concept for a reconnaissance UAV that could be available in 2015. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman were awarded contracts to study the air vehicle in 2001, and earlier this year further contracts were awarded to study sensors and apertures. Now Lockheed Martin has received contracts to define radar modes and mitigate electromagnetic interference.
The SensorCraft would carry both X-band and UHF radars operating in air-to-air and air-to-ground modes, providing airborne and ground-moving target indication, synthetic-aperture radar imaging and, possibly, foliage penetration capability.
"That means a lot of timing and mode issues," says Ronald Manley, airborne radar systems business development manager at Lockheed Martin Naval Electronic & Surveillance Systems.
Under the multifunction surveillance system contract, the company will assess the capability of an onboard sensor manager to operate the UAV autonomously or semi-autonomously. "Notionally, the operator would ask to look at an area and the sensor manager would look at the task and the sensor availability and provide the best information - not just data - to the operator," says Manley.
The electromagnetic interference mitigation study will assess technologies to manage the interference between X-band and UHF band apertures and the air vehicle electronics. "There are a lot of electrons floating around, and we don't want a lot of harmonics that inhibit performance," Manley says.
Source: Flight International
