The US Air Force Research Laboratory wants to develop a miniature common datalink (Mini-CDL) for small unmanned air vehicles which is interoperable with the US military’s existing airborne common datalink (CDL) architecture.
A broad agency solicitation for the Mini-CDL system released on 18 August proposes an initial 12-month development effort by two teams, with the potential for follow-on advanced engineering, hardware construction and flight-testing phases. The initial 12- month activity is cost capped at $3.3 million, representing two potential awards worth $1.65 million. The solicitation closes on 3 October, with contract awards planned for 20 October.
The full programme, if progressed, would last 72 months with an indicative budget of $23 million.
Solicitation documents say the Mini-CDL should be capable of being fitted to, and carried by, UAVs in the 4-90kg (9-88lb) maximum take-off weight range, indicating that micro air vehicles are being seen as future potential users. Current tenders for the USAF’s Batmav micro UAV competition call for bidders to be prepared to assist that service to prepare a waiver for the use of CDL standards for initial operational systems.
Solicitation documents also advise that “producing a CDL system that can employed successfully on the target platforms may require the contractor examine the size, weight and power requirements of subsystems beyond the terminal itself. To that end, the contractor shall include antenna systems as part of the overall concept of Mini-CDL. That is, existing antennae for CDL may not be practical for small unmanned air systems in terms of their size, weight and power consumption.”
The Mini-CDL concept follows on from revised guidance released by the Pentagon last December, which mandated CDL standards be used for all airborne sensor imagery transmissions to enable improved system interoperability. Existing CDL architecture products are unable to be used on small UAV systems because of weight and space restrictions, giving rise to a significant number of platform-unique datalinks. In turn, this has affected frequency availability in battlefield environments.
The Mini-CDL solicitation says the new datalink could also have application to manned platforms in supporting individual sensor systems.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
