United Technologies has been awarded a contract to study integrating its MS-177 sensor into the Air Force’s Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS).
The contract, awarded by DCGS prime contractor Lockheed Martin to United Technologies subsidiary UTC Aerospace Systems, will examine the MS-177 imaging system, which is derived from the Senior Year Electro-Optical Reconnaissance System (SYERS) 2 installed on the U-2 surveillance aircraft.
“The benefits of the MS-177 sensor are found in its new wide area field of view and higher resolution imaging performance, which gives it the ability to collect on greater than six-times more area of coverage per hour,” a United Technologies news release said. “It also provides motion imagery modality that adds on-target persistence throughout the field of regard, providing both combat identification and tracking information of moving targets. These technological advances will contribute to a more detailed and accurate Common Operating Picture for the USAF’s DCGS.”
Kevin Raftery, a vice president at UTC, said: “This contract is an inter-dependent effort with our Global Hawk MS-177 program that will provide DCGS operators and analysts with very similar capabilities to those employed by the the U2’s SYERS mission operatives.”
