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BINGEN, Wash., Oct. 29, 2014 – From its booth at the Euronaval Exhibition and Conference in Paris, Insitu announced today ScanEagle 2, the next generation of its revolutionary ScanEagle platform. Leveraging lessons learned from more than 800,000 operational hours, ScanEagle 2 provides increased payload power and expanded payloadoptions, a more robust navigation system, better image quality due to a fully digital video system and a state-of-the-art, purpose-built propulsion system. The aircraft’s new architecture also maximizes commonality with all Insitu systems, reducing training, hardware and life-cycle costs.

“For two decades, Insitu has made a name for itself through iterative innovation,” said Ryan M. Hartman, Insitu’s president and CEO. “ScanEagle 2 will shepherd us into the next two decades as we focus on reliability and affordability and enter the civil/commercial market. And as ScanEagle has always done, ScanEagle 2 will provide the capability our warfighters have come to expect from Insitu – yet more affordable and more capable.”

Engineered for unmatched performance, ScanEagle 2 employs a whole-systems approach to affordability and higher reliability that includes a new propulsion system – the first reciprocating internal combustion propulsion system designed and manufactured specifically for Small-Unmanned-Aircraft-Systems-class vehicles. ScanEagle 2 also enables commonality with other unmanned systems thanks to an open-architecture ground control system, as well as a launch-and-recovery system it shares with Integrator, Insitu’s other unmanned platform.

Insitu Inc., located in Bingen, Wash., is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company. Insitu designs, develops and manufactures UAS and provides associated services for commercial, civil and defense applications. With a small footprint and customer focus for both land and sea operations, the company’s family of UAS solutions and global mission support serves the needs of worldwide customers.

To date, these systems have accumulated more than 800,000 operational flight hours and 100,000 sorties. For more information, visit www.insitu.com.

The Brazilian Navy conducted embarked trials of Boeing/Insitu's ScanEagle unmanned aerial system (UAS) on 18 February as part of studies into the selection of a UAS to fulfill the Aeronave Remotamente Pilotada-Embarcada (Remotely Piloted Aircraft-Embarked: ARP-E) project.

The trials took place 12 km from Rio de Janeiro on board the recently delivered 1,700-tonne Apa (P121), an Amazonas-class offshore patrol vessel built by BAE Systems.

The ARP-E project requires procurement of five embarked UASs and will be a programme funded under the larger Amazonia Azul Surveillance System (SisGAAz). Each UAS will comprise two or three embarked vehicles; a control station; a variety of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensors; and an embarked data link terminal.

DAHLGREN, Va. - (NNS) -- Navy engineers used technologies supporting the science of integration to guide live gun fire onto distant targets, demonstrating a new integrated surface warfare capability in a maritime environment, Sept. 29.
Military and civilian leaders observed as unmanned surface and air vehicles - integrated with naval guns and the Aegis combat system - relayed targeting data to operators engaging fictitious threats on the Potomac River Test Range.

Specifically, Baron and his team of Navy scientists and engineers used the science of integration to make surface warfare systems interoperable with unmanned air and unmanned surface vehicles, enabling streaming identification and shot correction data to naval gunnery throughout the test.

Surface warfare officers evaluating the technology joined civilian technologists at the event to prove the Navy can bridge interoperability gaps - known as the interstitial space - between complex system-of-systems.

Williams - the surface warfare tactical action officer for the experiment - ordered a gun engagement on a fictitious threat based on identification and targeting data he saw streaming from an unmanned surface vehicle.
At that point, the commander used a deployed Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle's streaming video data to spot, precisely target, engage and continually support reengagement through gun targeting corrections to the MK160 gun weapon system operator.

"Scan Eagle has been deployed on guided missile destroyers for years to provide persistent electro-optical and infrared surveillance," said Williams, adding that, "it has been used for Naval Surface Fire Support spotting to walk gun rounds onto an enemy target, but not in an automated fashion like in this experiment."
Moreover, Williams used a Navy technology called Visual Automated Scoring System (VASS) to instantly correct the gun targeting.
The NSWCDD-patented system is an automated, computerized method for determining gunfire miss distances using video data. With a non-line of sight weapon system, VASS allows the gunner to adapt gun pointing angle and converge gunfire onto a target without having to risk the lives of forward observers.

The UK Royal Navy is poised to conduct its first operational flights with the Boeing/Insitu ScanEagle unmanned air system, as the service continues to evaluate its long-term requirements for such equipment.

“The [ScanEagle] system starts real operations from this week, on maritime security patrols in the [Arabian] Gulf and in the Indian Ocean,” says Cdr Bow Wheaton, the RN’s maritime aviation capability desk officer. The activity will involve the service’s Type 23 frigate HMS Somerset and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary landing ship Cardigan Bay, he adds, with the first embarked training flights having been conducted recently from the latter.

Delivered by Boeing Defence UK under a contractor-owned, contractor-operated arrangement with the Ministry of Defence, the ScanEagle service provision will deliver up to a maximum of 600 flight hours per month. Capable of operating for up to 12h at a time, the 22kg (48lb) aircraft carries an electro-optical/infrared sensor package to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tasks up to 40nm (74km) away from its launch vessel.

Noting that the organic capability is expected to be in great demand once available, Wheaton notes: “we are already looking at what goes on beyond March 2015, when this urgent operational requirement deal runs out.”

Speaking during a UAS media facility held at the Royal Air Force’s Waddington base in Lincolnshire on 15 January, Wheaton revealed that the RN will later this year perform a trial campaign with an optionally-piloted rotorcraft, ideally from a Type 23 vessel.

Being funded in association with the MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the activity will be performed in conjunction with AgustaWestland, which will be supplying an adapted example of the SW-4 light helicopter produced by its Polish subsidiary PZL Swidnik.

Potential applications to be assessed during the demonstration include persistent surveillance, minehunting and hydrographic survey tasks, Wheaton says.