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Northrop Grumman Puts Global Hawk in the Foxhole to Aid Soldiers
U.S. troops involved in military operations are getting unprecedented access to high-resolution imagery.
Under a new initiative with the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman, individual soldiers and Marines will be fed imagery from the high-flying Global Hawk UAV. The imagery will be shown on a PDA.
The initiative was spurred largely by the U.S. Marine Corps. Service officials have long complained about being neglected in the intelligence chain, something that will be rectified with the Advanced Information Architecture effort. Individual combatants will also be able to request imagery.
Global Hawk is fitted with a server to broadcast the imagery directly. Troops get the PDA and receive the imagery via their man-packable radio. It takes less than two minutes to download about five images.
It's only one of several enhancements made or in planning for Global Hawk as a result of the UAV's more than 2,000 hours of combat operations. Other initiatives include a 360º electro-optical/infrared sensor for maritime operations, an enhanced-precision emitter-locating radar-warning receiver and an air-cooled active electronically scanned array.
Northrop Grumman has its eye on several programs, although a U.S. Navy
drive to buy an endurance maritime surveillance UAV has stalled
because of a lack of funds. General Atomics also is eyeing that
program. NATO plans to buy Global Hawks under its Alliance Ground
Surveillance program and Germany expects to purchase the Euro Hawk
derivative, first in a signals intelligence configuration and then
as an imagery intelligence platform.
—Robert Wall
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