Aurora wins AFRL contract

16 December 2011 - : by the Shephard News Team

Aurora Flight Sciences has been awarded an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Rapid Reaction Technology Office contract to supply the Skate Small Unmanned Aerial System (SUAS) for the Urban Beat Cop (UBC) programme. The programme will see SUAVs demonstrated to perform law enforcement duties in urban areas.

According to the company, while walking the beat, a police officer becomes very familiar with areas of the city by constantly observing, understanding, and interpreting what they see on a daily basis. A system that automatically performs this same mission in asymmetric urban conflicts, absent the presence of the warfighter, can significantly reduce casualties as well as improve the situational awareness.

The UBC programme will run for a twelve month period, at the end of which a flight test will take place to demonstrate the advanced video processing and parasitic recharging system required for the autonomous perch and stare operation. Aurora will develop and integrate capabilities to its Skate SUAS to allow the system to deploy and recover autonomously from a base station, perform perch and stare clandestine surveillance, and provide critical real-time Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition (RSTA) data to users.