General Atomics has been awarded a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract to continue research on the Gremlin drone swarm program.
Under the contract for Phase 2 of the Gremlin program, General Atomics will continue to develop technologies that will allow aircraft to launch volleys of low-cost, reusable UAVs and then retrieve them in midair.
The General Atomics Gremlin model has one-hour endurance and can carry a 60-pound payload.
General Atomics had won the contract for Phase 1 in March 2016.
“While Phase 1 was conceptual in nature, Phase 2 aims to mature the design and perform in-flight risk reduction testing for the C-130-based recovery system,” a company news release said. “Activities will include Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the aircraft and recovery system, ground testing to validate key technologies, and flight test to demonstrate safety and recovery system performance. The program is expected to culminate in an air launch and recovery demonstration in 2019.”
