Sensor system upgrades coming for Air National Guard remotely piloted craft
NewsJune 22, 2020
POWAY, Calif. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has won a $12.1 million contract to upgrade MQ-9 Block 1 and Block 5 remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) and Block 25 Dual Control Module Ground Control Station (DCMGCS) and Block 30 Ground Control Station (GCS) for the Air National Guard (ANG).
The ANG order includes kits for high-definition displays, Barrett Asymmetrical Digital Datalink Computers (BADDC), and multi-intelligence smart processing (MISP). The BADDC, according to company officials, act as a payload data multiplexer and work to boost the number of sensor data sources that the RPA can send over data links within its channel and bandwidth constraints; the BADDC interleaves data from the RPA’s onboard sensors and forwards the data into a single channel that can transmit several sources of sensor data through the link.
GA-ASI president David R. Alexander said of the contract win: "The HD kits and BADDCs will allow enable increased throughput and higher quality of sensor data between the MQ-9 and GCS, while MISP will enable seamless data flow between GCS and external networks. These upgrades will improve mission effectiveness tremendously.”
