BINGEN, Wash., March 3 (UPI) -- A subsidiary of U.S. company Insitu Inc. is working with Selex Galileo to integrate synthetic aperture radar into a drone for Australian forces.
Insitu, a manufacturer of unmanned aerial systems, said its Integrator aircraft will deliver the highest resolution SAR imagery available on a tactical unmanned aerial vehicle when equipped with Selex's PicoSAR system.
"This will give deployed forces unprecedented operational flexibility," said Insitu Pacific Managing Director Andrew Duggan. "Today's persistent, high-quality SAR platforms, which fly at much higher altitudes, are expensive to operate, so they're scarce. On Integrator, the warfighter will be able to rapidly apply this advanced SAR technology at close range to targets for high-quality, all-weather change detection."
Insitu Pacific is based in Australia and serves UAS customers in the Asia-Pacific region. Its parent company is a wholly owned, independent subsidiary of Boeing. Selex Galileo is part of Italy's Finmeccanica group.
Integrator is a tactical asset that doesn't require runways and weighs about 22 pounds.
Additional details on the collaboration agreement weren't disclosed.
