General Atomics has been awarded funding to develop an unmanned drone to act as a sensor extension, as well as a secondary weapons bay, for manned fighter jets.

The company’s aeronautical systems division received a $17.8 million award from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to design and develop an unmanned Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS) aircraft.

AFRL is developing an open architecture concept autonomous collaborative platform to achieve its goals of rapid time-to-market and low acquisition cost, while extending and enhancing the sensing volume of manned aircraft.

Along with General Atomics, Kratos has been awarded the same funding. Read more on the programme here.

The off-board sensing station vehicle is intended to be an affordable, highly modular conventional take-off and landing jet-powered drone.

The fighter will also accommodate significant offensive weapons volume to act as a weapons bay extension for fighter jets.

“We’re excited to continue working on this project with AFRL,” said Chris Seat, senior vice president of special programmes for GA-ASI. “Our experience in developing and delivering the most cost-effective and forward-looking UAS solutions puts GA-ASI in a great position to deliver the right ACP to meet our customer’s requirements.”

The award covers the next 12 months as the base effort, and if the option is exercised, GA-ASI will spend the following 15 months manufacturing and flight demonstrating the aircraft, potentially growing the award to a total of $49 million.

www.ga.com