US Navy looks for longer range and endurance to solve wide-area mission planning
The US Navy manages a small UAS wide-area mission flight demonstration aboard USS Paul Hamilton. (Photo: US Navy)
The US Navy is engaged in a number of efforts to identify rapid acquisition strategies for new maritime based aircraft and technologies, including wide area mission capable UAVs.
The USN expects to decide on future testing of small UAVs performing wide-area maritime SAR (MSAR) missions by evaluating competitors’ ability to successfully operate from surface vessels at long range and extended periods.
Following a test demonstration with two different small UAVs from Insitu and L3 Harris Technologies (with its FVR-90) on wide-area missions aboard USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60), held off the coast of San Diego in July, the USN could go on to award an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) prototype project to one of the two manufacturers before the end of the year.
‘The Department of the Navy is interested in
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