GA-ASI demonstrates ISR products

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SAN DIEGO, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. said it successfully demonstrated enhanced, maritime ISR product capabilities in a U.S. Navy exercise.

U.S. Navy Experiment Trident Warrior 2011, conducted off the Virginia coast, is the Navy's primary FORCEnet Sea Trial experiment series designed to evaluate emerging technologies and network-centric toolsets to enhance situational awareness for decision-makers across all levels of the naval chain of command.

During its participation in July, GA-ASI operated a Predator B UAS surrogate, a King Air aircraft, equipped with Predator B-type sensors and configured for maritime surveillance in support of fleet and homeland security objectives.

The Predator B surrogate performed a variety of overland and maritime Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance missions in the littoral environment, including surface vessel detection using the Lynx Multi-mode Radar and Full-Motion Video from a FLIR 380HD imaging system to discern vessel intent.

"Our primary objective was to provide real-time situational awareness by disseminating radar and Electro-Optical Infrared data to Navy land-based and at-sea command and control nodes," said Linden Blue, president, Reconnaissance Systems Group, GA-ASI.

"The missions were executed with success, demonstrating the ability to detect, classify, and identify targets in various weather conditions in support of fast attack craft, fast inshore attack craft, maritime interdiction operations and land convoy operations."

To support TW11, GA-ASI integrated a surrogate UAS platform equipped with EO/IR, a Lynx Multi-mode Radar with Maritime Wide Area Search mode and a tactical common data link system into the Navy's C2 architecture.