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44 Report | Farnborough International Airshow “Our MX line represents state-of- the-art technology for military and security projects, and we are focused on expanding this business area,” Steve Kantor of L-3 said. “Configured with high-definition IR and precise laser designation capabilities, these systems are fully equipped with the essential tools required to meet dynamic mission requirements.” With unmanned systems becoming much more prevalent in military operations, the training of pilots and sensor operators has moved higher up the agenda. At the show, Gene Colabatistto of CAE explained that unmanned aerial systems are no different from manned platforms in that they need skilled and proficient personnel to operate them safely and accomplish the missions. “In fact, the US Air Force is very fond of saying, ‘There is nothing unmanned about remotely piloted aircraft’,” he said. “CAE is the US Air Force’s training partner on the RPA training programme – we support the classroom simulator and live-flying training on the USAF’s MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper. “This programme gives us a lot of expertise and experience in the training required by UAS pilots and sensor operators. We are also General Atomics’ global training partner on these platforms, and are currently developing a Predator mission trainer for the Italian Air Force, and will soon support its new training academy in North Dakota. We were also selected recently by Insitu to provide instructors for its ScanEagle.” Elbit Systems unveiled Light SPEAR, a self-protection and jamming system for UASs that offers an improvement in a UAS’s survivability and a solution to the growing demand for operating and collecting accurate intelligence in highly hostile environments. Light SPEAR is based on Elbit Systems’ (Elisra) EW (electronic warfare) and SIGINT (signal intelligence) systems, Elisra’s operational experience being in the development of unified digital EW suites, installed on board platforms such as fighter jets, helicopters and utility aircraft, already in use by the Israeli Air Force and other customers worldwide. Light SPEAR is a compact EW system based on multiple digital radio frequency memory jamming channels that work in parallel and cover a wide spectrum. It enables easy integration with an array of transmitters and platforms, and its low SWaP profile makes it suited for UAS platforms operating in hostile environments. On a similar theme, Israel Aerospace Industries and avionics manufacturer Honeywell spoke about a sense-and- avoid capability for IAI’s Heron series of unmanned aircraft systems they will jointly develop. The project, funded by the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (Bird) Foundation, aims to demonstrate a system in 2018. Honeywell will provide a single line replaceable unit for the project, integrating software, hardware and fusion capability for different sensors. IAI will contribute a ground control station pilot interface with separation and collision avoidance manoeuvring logic supporting Heron pilots. Flight tests of the Heron 1 UAS equipped with the sense-and-avoid system are planned for mid-2018. “Sense-and-avoid solutions do not currently exist for UASs to operate in national civilian airspace,” Carey Smith of Honeywell Aerospace said. “Honeywell will leverage this and government agencies to work with IAI and provide a step forward in next-generation avionics solutions that address the need for sense-and-avoid capability.” Honeywell is also providing a TCAS II processor and fusion algorithms for a sense-and-avoid system being tested by NASA and the FAA in the US. Based on NASA’s Ikhana UAS, a Predator B derivative, the system combines Honeywell’s TCAS system with a BAE Systems ADS-B transponder and a General Atomics due regard radar. Rafael has developed a system called Drone Dome that is designed to counter the growing threat of micro- and August/September 2016 | Unmanned Systems Technology CAE is the US Air Force’s training partner on its RPA programme IAI’s Heron is to be equipped with a sense-and-avoid system