A Smarter Scout

Linked to a new communications network and fitted with torpedoes and other munitions, the Fire Scout would be a multirole weapon.

By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor

The unmanned helicopter being developed as an airborne sensor platform for the Navy and Army also will function as part of a network designed to give commanders great flexibility in using real-time imagery for tactical advantage.

Mike Fuqua, Northrop Grumman’s business and strategy manager for the RQ-8 Fire Scout vertical-takeoff unmanned aerial vehicle (VTUAV), said one of the improvements planned for the helicopter is the Advanced Information Architecture (AIA), an airborne, Internet-style communications network that will allow tactical users to download imagery of a target directly and redirect sensors to obtain updated imagery from any surveillance platform linked to it. AIA stores imagery in high-capacity computer servers, one of which would be fitted to the Fire Scout.

The network “provides real-time imagery to the warfighter as it is requested,” Fuqua said. “We demonstrated this by putting a very large server in an [E-2C] aircraft. The warfighter is able to call down imagery he needs, not all of the imagery at one time. This can give immediate intelligence to the warfighter down to the platoon level, and have Navy applications as well.”

A major feature of AIA is that it provides small units, which normally do not have access to wide bandwidths of radio transmission, an alternative to the bandwidth-intensive process currently used to download imagery.

AIA was conceived by Northrop Grumman, which designed the software patch for an airborne server and maintains a common software configuration. The AIA capability has been demonstrated on a Global Hawk high-altitude, high-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle.

Airframe changes also are being made in the design of the Fire Scout to accommodate more mission systems payload. The VTUAV is being modified to accommodate more types of modular sensors and, eventually, weapons.

Currently, the Navy’s planned Fire Scout payload is the BriteStar electro-optical/infrared/laser designator-range finder and three jam-resistant radios. The Navy plans to add a mine-detection system and a more sophisticated communications package. The additions to the helicopter would include the AIA as well as a precision weapon such as the Hellfire air-to-surface missile and the Joint Tactical Radio System for beyond-the-horizon communications relay. The systems would be added in a spiral, or gradual, fashion.

Other equipment being considered for the Fire Scout includes maritime surveillance radar, satellite communications, sonobuoys, torpedoes and small-strike munitions. Northrop Grumman has installed and tested a synthetic aperture radar — which can display high-resolution video of terrain — on one RQ-8A for evaluation.

Although its development predates the concept of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) now under construction, the RQ-8 is tailor-made for it. The ship is designed to operate one VTUAV system, which includes three RQ-8 aircraft.

The Fire Scout will contribute to all “three missions of the LCS — antisubmarine warfare, antisurface warfare and mine warfare,” Fuqua said.

The Sea Fighter X-Craft catamaran ship recently launched for delivery to the Navy will be used to test LCS concepts and likely be a platform for testing the sea legs of the Fire Scout. Testing on board other high-speed vessels also has been proposed.

“We’re looking to get the Fire Scout to sea as soon as possible,” said Capt. Paul Morgan, Navy program manager for unmanned aerial vehicles for the program executive officer for strike and unmanned aerial vehicles. “One of the options that’s on the table — it hasn’t been formalized — is to do some at-sea testing with the X-Craft,” preferably in 2005.

The Fire Scout, designed to operate from all aviation-capable Navy ships, has completed connectivity checks and practice approaches to an amphibious warfare ship and has successfully qualified in land-based testing with the Unmanned Common Automatic Recovery System. The next step is landings and takeoffs from a ship.

“Most of the issues we have are with shipboard integration,” Morgan said. “That’s always a challenging period in any air vehicle test program.”

“The ground-control station [for the RQ-8] will be integrated right into the combat system of the LCS and will use the Tactical Common Data Link and Raytheon’s Tactical Control System,” Fuqua said.

Fire Scout will be assembled at Northrop Grumman’s new Unmanned Systems Integration Center in Moss Point, Miss., which is scheduled to deliver the first of two engineering and manufacturing development models of the RQ-8B in 2006. It will be designed to carry a 600-pound payload, triple that of the previous RQ-8A version. A payload bay has been added to the tailcone and sponsons were added to the landing gear to make mission equipment more accessible for maintenance or changing mission modules.

“It’s a good system and we look forward to getting it to sea, and to the fleet,” Morgan said.

The Navy currently flies five Fire Scout RQ-8As in development work, while Northrop Grumman retains two for systems development.