RTX, the umbrella company of subsidiaries Raytheon and Collins Aerospace, demonstrated two Launched Effects capabilities at the Army's Experimental Demonstration Gateway Event (EDGE) last month at Yuma Proving Ground, AZ.
EDGE focused on refining the requirements for the Army’s Launched Effects program. Launched Effects, part of the service’s aviation modernization portfolio, refers to small, unmanned aircraft that shoot out of vehicles in the air and on the ground.
About 30 surrogates from five industry partners, in addition to government technology, were used during the demonstration between Sept. 9 and 24, the Army has said.
During EDGE, Collins demonstrated the RapidEdge “mission system and software toolset” that served as the “brains” facilitating collaboration between a group of UAVs with various payloads that flew as Launched Effects surrogates, RTX stated today.
Meanwhile, Raytheon deployed “autonomy capabilities” that were previously developed through the Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment government program and demonstrated Launched Effects capabilities developed for the Coyote family of counter drone systems.
RTX’s solutions at EDGE were able to “share data, seamlessly demonstrating the utility of modular open system architectures and mesh networks,” according to the company. Ryan Bunge, the vice president and general manager for Collins’ C4I&A portfolio, said today that the technologies “showed how autonomous sensing and effects can extend the Army’s reach, delivering sensing and effects in anti-access or area denial environments.”
Raytheon also announced this week that it demonstrated its ku-band Radio Frequency Sensor (KuRFS), along with the Coyote Block 2 kinetic effector and Block 3 non-kinetic effector during the Army’s annual summer test period. Those systems tested “their essential detect and defeat capabilities” as part of the Low, slow, small-unmanned aircraft Integrated Defense System (LIDS), according to the company.
The 360-degree KuRFS radar “excelled in a stress test” and was able to detect and track a swarm of UAVs during the test, according to Raytheon. The Coyote systems defeated “targets, singles and swarms” while demonstrating the ability to defeat multiple threats in a reduced amount of time.
“The tests validated software enhancements made to both systems,” according to Raytheon.