Rockwell Collins Has Key Role in New Unmanned Aircraft System

By Dave DeWitte, Reporter

Rockwell Collins headquarters building in northeast Cedar Rapids

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By Becky Ogann

Story Created: Aug 24, 2010 at 1:13 PM CST

Story Updated: Aug 24, 2010 at 1:13 PM CST

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Rockwell Collins will provide flight controls and navigation systems for a new small tactical unmanned aircraft system being developed by the Navy and Marine Corps.

The Navy and Marine Corps recently awarded the Small Tactical Unmanned Air System contract to Bingen, Wash.-based Insitu for its Integrator Unmanned Aircraft System.

The Integrator Unmanned Aircraft System uses Rockwell Collins’ Athena 111m flight control system. It also flies with a Rockwell Collins global positioning system that improves the accuracy of the unmanned aircraft system and its subsystems.

The flight control system uses the global positioning system to autonomously and accurately position the unmanned aircraft system to capture the aircraft.

Insitu has been developing the Integrator since 2007 and flying it since 2009. It has demonstrated the ability to land on an aircraft at night, and to fly for more than 21 consecutive hours, according to the company’s Web site. It can be retrieved by a proprietary hook system.

Rockwell Collins will work with Insitu during a two-year engineering and manufacturing development effort to bring the unmanned aircraft system design to STUAS requirements. STUAS will provide ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconaissance) support for U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy.

“Rockwell Collins’ role in the STUAS contract validates the reliability and performance of our Athena flight control and navigation systems,” Rockwell Collins Senior Director of UAS and Control Technology David Vos said in prepared remarks.

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