US Army chooses Textron Systems and Griffon Aerospace in final showdown for FTUAS
Textron Systems remains in the running for FTUAS with Aerosonde Mk. 4.8 HQ UAS. (Photo: Textron)
The US Army plans to procure a Future Tactical UAS (FTUAS) to replace the Textron Systems RQ-7Bv2 Shadow tactical UAV currently in service with the US Army's Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs). The FTUAS is being developed under the wider Future UAS (FUAS) programme.
Griffon Aerospace and Textron systems have been selected for the final two competition stages to meet the US Army’s FTUAS requirement which will see the companies conduct flight demonstrations before providing production representative prototypes for final evaluation.
The Textron’s Aerosonde Mk.4.8 HQ UAS and Griffon Aerospace FVR-90 were selected after the completion of Option 1, which culminated in a preliminary design review, and Option 2, which ended with a critical design review to establish prototype baseline.
Under Option 3 the two companies will conduct flight demonstrations and Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) third-party verification. The process will include putting the platform into soldier’s hands and consider characteristics such as Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL), acoustic signature, and deployment.
The two companies were also awarded Option 4 where production representative prototypes will be delivered for use in testing and operational demonstrations and also include environmental, electromagnetic and environmental effects, transportability and flight tests ending production readiness review.
The US Army noted that “FTUAS provides transformational capabilities including, VTOL for runway independence, On-The-Move command and control, soldier led field level maintenance, and enables rapid capability insertions, further allowing the system to keep pace with technology”.
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