U.S. Marine Corps plans to arm the AAI RQ-7B Shadow tactical unmanned aircraft have cleared NATO treaty compliance hurdles. The service now expects to conduct a field user evaluation within 18-24 months.
NATO approval was needed as the rail-launched Shadow falls under a treaty intended to prevent the proliferation of intermediate-range cruise missiles. “We had to demonstrate it is a UAS,” says Col. James Rector, Navy programme manager for small tactical unmanned aerial systems.
AAI will be responsible for selecting a 25-lb.-class precision munition to arm the Shadow, but the Marine Corps is looking for an available weapon that already has the required safety approvals so the program can focus on system integration. “The weapon has to be TRL [technology readiness level] 9,” Rector says.
The first phase is an experiment, and we need to bring a weapon system that meets the objectives of the experiment,” says Steve Reid, AAI vice president of unmanned aircraft systems. “We want something with prior certification, and not many sources meet that criterion.”
Candidate weapons include General Dynamics’ 81mm air-dropped guided mortar, MBDA’s Saber glide bomb, Raytheon’s Small Tactical Munition unpowered mini-missile, and both the common smart submunition and guided clean area weapon from AAI sister company Textron Defense.
“We are still in the detail selection process,” Reid says. “We have been working on [arming Shadow] internally for about three years and have done trade studies and downselected weapons We are being careful to keep an open architecture approach, to make Shadow a universal platform that can accept a variety of weapons under 25 pounds.”
As the principal customer for the Shadow, the Army will help the Marines weaponize the aircraft, says Tim Owings, AAI deputy programme manager for Army UAS.
The plan involves porting over to the Shadow ground station the weapons-control software already developed for the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, which uses the same AAI-developed One System for its ground control system.
Source: Aviation Week