The US Department of Energy (DoE) is planning to carry out flight demonstrations later this year of its developmental Constant Hawk airborne surveillance suite.
The DoE released tenders on 10 August for the lease of a single-engined, fixed-wing UAVor optionally piloted aircraft to support the demonstration.
The Constant Hawk system records and archives sensor data from persistent surveillance systems into a fast-retrieval system that allows for imagery of incidents such as a bomb blast to be “fast rewound” to allow analysts to backtrack the sequence of events to assist in the detection and identification of perpetrators.
Pentagon officials describe the system as being similar to TiVo, a popular digitally based commercial television recording and retrieval system that is replacing video recorders in US households.
National Security Technologies of Las Vegas, a joint venture between Northrop Grumman, AECOM, CH2MHILL and Nuclear Fuel Services, is carrying out the development programme for the DoE.
US Department of Defense director of defence research and engineering John Young last month flagged plans for deployment of the system in the Middle East to support US forces.
The DoE demonstration aircraft solicitation calls for a minimum payload capacity of 270kg (600lb), indicating the Constant Hawk airborne segment is currently of a significant size. The existing US DoD demonstration aircraft carrying the system is a leased Shorts 360.
Source: Flight International
