Flight International online news 11:30GMT: Lockheed Martin has conducted a successful operator-in-the-loop flight test of “LOCAAS”, a low-cost autonomous attack system.
The test took place at Eglin AFB Florida on 21 October.
LOCAAS is an autonomous, wide-area search miniature munition which comes equipped with a laser radar (LADAR) seeker.
Randy Bigum, vice president of Strike Weapons at Lockheed Martin, says "This test demonstrated the capability of LOCAAS to integrate automatic combat identification, global data links, operator-in-the-loop involvement, and successful redirect of the weapon."
The LOCAAS flight test vehicle was launched from a King Air 200 and flew some 40 nm in about 15 min.
LOCAAS is powered by the Technical Directions Incorporated J45G turbojet .
Its LADAR is used to search, identify and report on targets in a preplanned mission search area.
During the test, the operator-in-the-loop redirected the LOCAAS to the location of a moving target, which altered its predefined flight path to an optimal approach to the moving target as the new primary target of interest.
A Globalstar SATCOM system was used to link the LOCAAS test vehicle and the operator-in-the-loop with a detailed simulation of the Network Centric Collaborative Targeting (NCCT) system developed by L3 Communications.
The test vehicle was also linked via data link to the Cooperative Attack Munitions Real-time Assessment (CAMRA) testbed, which simulated three "virtual" munitions cooperatively searching in flight paths adjacent to the test vehicle.
The Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate sponsored the flight test which was the culmination of five successful flights including one with a live warhead.
Source: Flight International