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Leonardo receives NATO surveillance system contract

Leonardo has received a contract to provide services and develop logistical and control systems for NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance program.

By Stephen Carlson
The RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV, pictured, will be employed by NATO to collect border, ground and maritime surveillance for security, defense, counterterrorism and disaster relief coordination. U.S. Air Force photo
The RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV, pictured, will be employed by NATO to collect border, ground and maritime surveillance for security, defense, counterterrorism and disaster relief coordination. U.S. Air Force photo

June 21 (UPI) -- Leonardo has received a contract to provide services and develop logistical and control systems for NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance program, the company announced on Wednesday.

Leonardo has been chosen by the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance Management Agency to develop and maintain key elements of the AGS. Leonardo is a member of the Northrop Grumman led consortium developing the NATO AGS Core System.

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The contract includes the AGS Logistics Information System, Mission Operational Support systems and Transportable General Ground Stations. It provides for spare parts, maintenance, training and operational support for the systems.

ALIS is a centralized logistics database that will aid in planning and management of maintenance, repair, warehousing, and personnel management and training. across the AGS program. It will also be used to maintain the NATO AGS Core baseline for maintenance activities.

The MOS and TGGS main responsibility is to collect data, photographs and video from remotely piloted aircraft and deliver them for intelligence analysis along with command and control and other duties. Leonardo will provide a Wide Band Data Link for the two systems.

The NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance program is based out of Sigonella, Italy. The system will be acquired by 15 members of NATO during 2017 and 2018.

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It includes five dedicated RQ-4 Global Hawk remotely-piloted aircraft. The Global Hawk will provide border, ground, and maritime surveillance to NATO for security, defense, counterterrorism and disaster relief coordination.

A network of ground stations will also collate and deliver for analysis data from a wide variety of intelligence gathering systems such as signals intercepts and national surveillance systems.

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