Lockheed Martin [LMT] recently demonstrated an airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) system on an optionally piloted plane for E.U. border security, the company said recently.
Lockheed Martin is the systems integrator on the Austrian-built Diamond Airborne Sensing DA42 MPP aircraft and is competing for a services contract offered by Frontex, the Warsaw-based E.U. organization responsible for coordinating border security.
The goal of the multiple flights was to evaluate the role for optionally piloted or unmanned vehicles for further enhancing security border security in the maritime domain, the company said. The demonstration took place in late October over Greece, said Charles Gulledge, the company’s lead for international ISR said.
The plane was equipped with a FLIR Electro Optical/InfraRed camera and communications suite to collect imagery and transmit it to a ground system via both line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight communications.
Lockheed Martin said the plane was designed to fly with a pilot or unmanned. During the demonstration, the company elected to man the DA42 MPP flights because of restrictions on unmanned flights in civilian airspace, Gulledge said. The company wanted to show the plane could be deployed quickly but also had an unmanned capability that could be employed once airspace restrictions are eased, Gulledge said.
Frontex plans to award a services contract in the first half of 2012, Gulledge said.