US Navy Testing "Universal" Operating System for Unmanned Aerial Systems

The US Navy has begun testing the software that eventually will control all of its maritime unmanned air vehicles and will initially be installed in the unmanned carrier-launched surveillance and strike (UCLASS) vehicle.

US Naval Air Systems Command announced on 10 September that engineers at NAS Patuxent River had installed the latest version of the common control system (CCS) software on a simulator based on the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton control station. The common software will eventually be the baseline for navy UAS, including the Triton and MQ-8 Fire Scout rotary wing UAS.

CCS is the control and connectivity leg of the three-part UCLASS programme. The other two legs are the UCLASS air vehicle and its physical control station aboard a carrier. Integration and testing of all three systems will be done at Pax River’s laboratory.

The navy already has demonstrated the feasibility of a stealthy, tailless carrier-based UAS with the Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned combat air systems demonstrator (UCAS-D) programme. That aircraft in August successfully launched from the USS Theodore Roosevelt, flew in formation with a Boeing F/A-18D Hornet and returned to the ship’s deck.

A final request for proposals from industry was expected following a meeting of a defence acquisition board scheduled for 10 September, but the meeting was delayed as the Navy reviews how to proceed with UCLASS in regard to the 2016 budgeting process. Northrop, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems already were awarded preliminary design review contracts for the air vehicle last year.

“One of the premises that started CCS was not rebuilding the software that we needed for every UAS every time,” CCS team lead Jeff Davis says in a statement. “We focused on using existing products that we have within the Navy inventory to provide that first baseline going forward for the next UAS, in this case UCLASS. As a result, this allows development investment to focus on the future — the new capabilities that you can bring to the fleet.”

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