Textron Systems announced that the company’s operating unit, AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems has completed the US Army’s 2011 Manned Unmanned System Integration Capability (MUSIC) exercise. Providing command and control of AAI’s Shadow Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (TUAS), as well as General Atomics’ Gray Eagle and Northrop Grumman’s (News – Alert) Hunter UAS, the AAI UAS Universal Ground Control Station (UGCS) served as the centerpiece of the exercise.
Demonstrating for the first time revolutionary improvements in battlefield communication and information sharing, a single UGCS seamlessly hands off control of each UAS from one ground control station to another.
“AAI UAS has been the Army’s provider of choice for ground control and remote video terminal technologies for more than a decade,” said Steven Reid, senior vice president and general manager. “During that time, we’ve worked closely alongside our customer to promote interoperability among its mission-critical systems. The MUSIC exercise was the fulfillment of that vision. Bringing it to life took ingenuity, dedication and incredibly productive collaboration between the Army and industry members.”
Incorporating an all-digital Tactical Common Data Link (TCDL) for data transmission, increased bandwidth and data security, the UGCS is NATO Standardization Agreement 4586 compliant.
Demonstrating how dismounted troops can view and control live, full-motion video and receive position information from Army UAS including the Shadow TUAS, Gray Eagle, Hunter and AeroVironment’s Raven and Puma unmanned aircraft, the AAI UAS One System Remote Video Terminal (OSRVT) enhanced with bi-directional capability was utilized during several scenarios, the company stated in a press release.
Source: Press Release