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IFF transponder tech for UAVs achieves economy of scale

11th January 2021 - 17:04 GMT | by Thomas Withington in Toulouse

RSS

Miniature Mode-5/Mode-S ATC and IFF transponders are being developed for installation on military UAVs.

The military and commercial use of UAVs in US airspace is predicted to increase rapidly in the short to medium term. A baseline Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) forecast for the US, for example, indicates that the UAS fleet will more than double from 2020 to 2024.

This poses problems for the military as well as commercial operators, especially as the DoD and FAA want to blend unmanned platforms into the civilian National Airspace System.

Equipping military UAS with Mode-5/Mode-S IFF transponder technology based on Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast is an important step in this direction, while also improving military air traffic

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Author

Thomas Withington

Thomas Withington is an award-winning analyst and writer specialising in electronic warfare, radar and military …

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