General Atomics advances crewed-uncrewed teaming

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems successfully paired an MQ-20 Avenger UAS with a Sabreliner business jet and two F-5 Advanced Tiger fighter jets, demonstrating the potential for MUM-T in IR sensing.

The Sabreliner was operated by Lockheed Martin and acted as a surrogate fighter, while the F-5s from Tactical Air Support were configured with internal Tactical Infrared Search and Track (TacIRST) sensors to perform multi-platform IR sensing.

All live aircraft had operational next-generation TacIRST sensors during the test to provide air-to-air moving target tracking.

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This data was then processed on a General Dynamics Mission Systems’ EMC2 Multi-Function Processor. Using this software-defined architecture, the flight demonstrated MUM-T capabilities between the MQ-20s, Sabreliner and crewed F-5 tactical fighters.

During the demonstration, all aircraft performed coordinated manoeuvres to sense relevant airborne targets in the IR spectrum.

The MQ-20 and Sabreliner were digitally connected over a Tactical Targeting Network Technology mesh network to share sensing observations.

In addition to the live-flight aircraft, five digital twins of the MQ-20 were integrated to autonomously fly a Live, Virtual, Constructive collaborative combat mission.