source US DoD
12.10.2011 By: Zach Rosenberg – Flight Global
Washington DC - The US Army has tapped Northrop Grumman’s heterogeneous airborne reconnaissance team (HART) system for deployment to Afghanistan.
The system, which tasks, controls and disseminates imagery from unmanned air vehicles (UAV), is set to deploy in early 2012 with a brigade combat team.
HART is a series of distributed computers that allow up to 50 users to control up to 50 UAVs and distribute data.
The system requires several computing systems, ranging from a relatively large one for the tactical operations centre (TOC) to a 3lb (1.3kg) model for use by deployed troops.
Users can observe footage from UAVs, which is automatically downgraded into still frames if the user lacks sufficient bandwidth. A user can request surveillance of an area, and HART will automatically choose and task the available airborne assets as necessary.
Northrop says that HART can integrate with any aircraft, though it requires some software modification on HART’s part.
HART has been tested during three major exercises, twice by the marines and once by the army. It began as a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) programme.
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