For the past few months, US, UK, and Australian service members, researchers, and industry partners have been experimenting with and assessing new technologies at US military installations across the Western US.
The experimentations are part of the US Army’s Project Convergence 2022 (PC22), a campaign used to experiment with speed, range, and decision dominance to achieve overmatch and inform the Joint Warfighting Concept and Joint All Domain Command and Control.
Project Convergence leverages a series of joint, multi-domain engagements to integrate artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomy to improve battlefield situational awareness, connect sensors with shooters, and accelerate the decision-making timeline.
Textron Systems successfully supported this project in early November 2022. While simultaneously exhibiting multiple mission capabilities, the Textron Systems team used two Aerosonde UAS carrying Trillium Engineering’s HD80-MV-600 and HD80-VV-510.
During the mission, one Aerosonde located the target, activating rapid Electronic Warfare (EW) effects on radio frequency emitters, and successfully cross-cued through a mesh radio to the second Aerosonde and Trillium payload, without relying on GPS.
Traditionally performed by Group 4 unmanned aircraft, this experimental mission proved Group 2 and 3, small-medium UAS can produce the same kind of communications, EW capabilities, and battlespace connectivity.
The two configurations of the HD80 used during the experiment have slight differences including weight, cameras, and export control:
- The HD80-VV-510 is an EO-only configuration with a 30x optical zoom visible camera. It also has a long focal length, 720p Global Shutter Spotter EO camera. Weighing just 4.27kg, this gimbal used BIS export control.
- The HD80-MV-600 is an EO/IR configuration with a 10x optical zoom visible camera and a 20x optical zoom cooled MWIR camera. This gimbal weighs slightly more at 4.9kg and is ITAR controlled.
Both gimbals are technology level 9 for military and commercial applications, have best-in-class robustness and stability, and offer accurate real-time vehicle and target location. The utilization of Trillium’s HD80 allowed Textron Systems to achieve capabilities that had not been demonstrated before.
