By Geoff Fein
Northrop Grumman [NOC] has successfully completed maritime sensor demonstrations for the Coast Guard using a company-owned MQ-8B Fire Scout tactical Vertical Unmanned Aircraft System (VUAS).
Fire Scout was equipped with the Telephonics‘ 1700B search, surveillance, tracking and imaging radar system, and FLIR [FLIR] Electro Optical Infrared system, and highlighted the versatility of the unmanned helicopter’s modular payload architecture and its flexibility in integrating off-the-shelf payloads.
The Telephonics radar was integrated on Fire Scout under an internal research and development cooperative funding program between Northrop Grumman and Telephonics in early 2008 (Defense Daily, Aug., 12)
The demonstration was performed under a contract awarded in September by ABS Group, a Systems Engineering Technical Assistance (SETA) contractor for the Coast Guard Research and Development Center.
The test took take place during the week of Oct. 19 in the Chesapeake Bay, from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., Webster Outlying Field.
The Coast Guard has said it needs to see how a maritime airborne sensor would work on the Vertical Unmanned Aircraft System (VUAS) before deciding whether to acquire the platforms for the National Security Cutter (Defense Daily, Aug. 12).
The purpose of the test was to verify and validate ship-deployed unmanned aerial system (UAS) aircraft and payload capabilities, as described in Northrop Grumman’s response to an earlier Coast Guard Request for Information (Defense Daily, Aug. 12).
Following the maritime sensor demonstration, the Coast Guard participated in a multiple day virtual exercise at the Northrop Grumman Unmanned Systems Development Center in Rancho Bernardo, Calif. The exercise took place in the company’s simulation Cyber Warfare Integration Node (CWIN). The simulation operated in a Coast Guard configuration and generated counter narcotics operations from the National Security Cutter.