Northrop Grumman Corporation’s RQ-4B Block 30 Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was deployed by the U.S. Air Force during a series of Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) exercises for the U.S. European Command to demonstrate an approach for transferring data from a central system to the joint force.
Global Hawk is the premier autonomous high-altitude, long-endurance Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platform for the U.S. Air Force and global partners. Its range, endurance and payload capacity is demonstrated by the U.S. Air Force’s continuous use of Global Hawk to collect intelligence and deter regional threats for the past two decades.
With imagery and signals intelligence collection capabilities, Global Hawk was used to provide high-altitude, long-endurance support.
To meet future operational needs, Global Hawk can extend and connect beyond its traditional strategic ISR mission and serve as an airborne network edge node, providing persistent communications relay and secure processing without putting personnel in harm’s way.
“Global Hawk is critical today and indispensable tomorrow as we continue to invest in new capabilities to improve system flexibility, resilience and responsiveness,” said Leslie Smith, vice president, Global Hawk, Northrop Grumman.
“We are adopting proven advancements in technology and infrastructure to provide modernized cockpits, dynamic mission rerouting, OMS compliant payload computing, universal payload adapters and IP-based communications.”
These capabilities will be critical to helping realize the Department of Defense’s Joint-All Domain Command and Control vision.
