Desert Falcon Rising - desertfalconrising.com

POWAY, Calif. — Technological advances could enable unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to deliver radically improved situational awareness within five years, according to the top executive at unmanned aircraft developer General Atomics.

“We’re probably no more than one-fifth along the way to developing really remarkable situational awareness,” said Neal Blue, chairman and CEO of the privately owned UAS pioneer. “We’re about one-fifth of the way of what we can actually achieve within the next five years.”

Blue said communications links, or “bandwidth down,” are the biggest limitation to providing wide-area situational awareness at very high resolution. Advances in onboard processing and the integration of data feeds from multiple platforms also will be crucial. “You have the integration from cached information, which will provide extremely accurate, high granularity in terms of target location,” Blue told Aviation Week in an interview at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems’ main assembly complex near San Diego.

Another challenge is preventing adversaries from hacking into communications networks. “You want bandwidth down at materially higher rates that is undetectable and therefore doesn’t require encryption,” Blue said. “This technology is available through different ultra-wideband waveforms, one of which we demonstrated ourselves at China Lake, which the Australians are currently testing and we hope will receive the level of attention required ... within the Defense Dept.”