Boeing awards contracts for FCS-UAV development
Boeing, as the Lead Systems Integrator for the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems program, Monday awarded four multimillion-dollar contracts to Piasecki Aircraft Corp., Teledyne Brown Engineering and AAI Corp. to participate in the first phase of development for two classes of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. These UAVs are core components of FCS.
The contracts, ranging from $3 million to $5 million, were awarded to Piasecki Aircraft Corp. for development of its Class II UAV Air Scout system, to Teledyne Brown Engineering for its larger Class III UAV Prospector system, to AAI Corp. for its Class III Shadow III and to Piasecki Aircraft Corp. for its Class III Air Guard.
A Class II UAV takes off from an FCS manned ground vehicle and gives the Army the enhanced ability to detect targets with an electro-optical, infrared sensor and precisely mark them with a laser target designator.
The Class III UAV has the same detection and precision-targeting capability of the Class II, as well as providing the Army reconnaissance and security/early warning abilities by remotely watching over and reporting changes in key terrain, avenues of approach and dangerous spots in open, rolling and restrictive urban areas. In addition, the Class III UAV can detect mines and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear dangers. The Class III systems can take off and land in unimproved areas or without an airfield.
Development of the Class II and Class III UAVs will be done in three phases. "We are confident that the partners we chose for phase one represent the best of industry, and, with the competition that follows for the other phases, the result will be two UAV systems that best meet the Army's future Class II and III UAV battlefield needs," said Mark Franzblau, director of the FCS UAV Integrated Product Team.
FCS LSI (Boeing) and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are developing different technologies in tandem until a final system is selected for both FCS UAV classes. Phase one will last approximately 10 months, with a down-select to one LSI candidate planned for mid-2006. The LSI and DARPA designs will then be evaluated for the next two years, after which the Army, DARPA and the LSI will choose a best-value solution for each class of UAV.