DARPA has awarded Northrop Grumman a $93 million contract for the final phase of its shipboard unmanned air vehicleUAV project to launch unmanned air vehicles from destroyers and frigates.
Phase III of the Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node (Tern) contract calls for design, fabrication and testing of a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV and shipboard launch and recovery system that can be launched fromfor smaller ships, according to the Department of Defense contract announcement.
The Tern demonstrator will resemble an experimental vertical take-off landing fighter called the Convair XFY-1 Pogo, according to a DARPA release. In the 1950s, the Navy designed the XFY-1 to provide airborne defense and reconnaissance from ships smaller than aircraft carriers. The XFY-1 project never made it beyond prototype testing due to design complications and operation that required above-average piloting skills.
“Moving to an unmanned platform, refocusing the mission and incorporating modern precision relative navigation and other technologies removes many of the challenges the XFY-1 and other prior efforts faced in developing aircraft based from small ships,” Dan Patt, DARPA program manager, said. “Tern is a great example of how new technologies and innovative thinking can bring long-sought capabilities within reach.”
The Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node (Tern) demonstrator program is a DARPA and Office of Naval Research joint effort with support from Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. to develop unmanned aircraft system launch and recovery from forward-deployed small ships without expensive ship modifications. The estimated completion date for the work is November 2017.
