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2023-11-10

Avenger’s Technological Leap: Collaborative Autonomous Systems

There has been significant discussion surrounding the development of a new era of autonomous systems aimed at maintaining the superiority of airpower. Tomorrow’s Air Force needs numerous versatile and capable aircraft for scouting, data sharing, and autonomous operation. This requires advanced aircraft, new sensing and communication systems, network integration, comprehensive software control, and user-friendly interfaces to overcome human oversight.

Deploying one component is tough. Implementing the entire ecosystem is an aviation milestone beyond any single entity or company. It is here that the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) and partners have made major progress.

Next-Gen RPA

MQ-20 Avenger is a highly advanced, next-generation RPA (Remotely piloted aircraft). Similar to the Predator B, the Predator C Avenger was conceived and financed internally by GA-ASI. Its distinctive design and enhanced speed provides unmatched survival prospects in more hostile settings, delivering an extended rapid-response armed reconnaissance capability to customers.

Avenger’s inaugural flight took place in April 2009. The latest production variant features a larger 76-foot wingspan and increased fuel capacity, providing an extended endurance of over 20 hours. The Avenger ER (Extended Range) made its first flight in October 2016 and concluded an expanded flight test programme in 2017.

The high-speed, multi-mission Avenger is a long-endurance, medium-to-high-altitude RPA that can perform wide-area surveillance, time-sensitive strike missions over land or sea, and a host of other military or civilian missions.

The aircraft has much higher operational and transit speeds than current Predator B-series aircraft, resulting in quick response and rapid repositioning for improved mission flexibility and survivability. The aircraft is a large Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with a wingspan of around 76 feet (approximately 23 metres). It can carry a variety of payloads, including cameras and weapons. Avenger is C-5/C-17 transportable or self-deployable.

Payload Flexibility

The RPA is capable of accommodating a diverse array of sensors and payloads, rendering it well-suited for an extensive spectrum of missions.

It can be outfitted with precision-guided munitions for executing strike operations. The design of the Avenger is expressly tailored to carry essential payloads, including the all-weather GA-ASI Lynx Multi-mode Radar, an Electro-optical/Infrared (EO/IR) sensor, Hellfire missiles, GBU-12/49, GBU-31, GBU-32, GBU-39, GBU-16/48, and GBU-38 JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition).

JDAM is a guided air-to-surface weapon that uses either the 2,000-pound BLU-109/MK 84, the 1,000-pound BLU-110/MK 83 or the 500-pound BLU-111/MK 82 warhead as the payload.

JDAM enables employment of accurate air-to-surface weapons against high priority fixed and relocatable targets from the MQ-20 Avenger.

This configuration offers an optimal equilibrium between prolonged loitering for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) purposes and a precision-strike capability. Avenger has a total payload capacity of 6,500 lb (2,948 kg).

It is equipped with advanced communication systems for data transfer and control, enabling it to be operated remotely.

P&W Turbofan Engine

It features a jet-powered design, utilising a commercial Pratt & Whitney turbofan engine, which generates over 5,000 pounds of thrust and necessitates a runway length of less than 5,000 feet. This engine is engineered for enhanced fuel efficiency and incorporates class-leading fuel consumption components. GA-ASI has enjoyed a long-term collaboration with Pratt & Whitney for over a decade with their turbofan engine for GA-ASI’s MQ-20 Avenger RPA.

Engineering Insights

The aircraft is designed for long-endurance missions and can stay airborne for long hours, depending on its payload and mission requirements. It operates at medium altitudes.

Avenger boasts impressive technical specifications, with the capability to operate at speeds of up to 400 KTAS (approximately 460 miles per hour or 740 kilometres per hour) and maintain an altitude exceeding 50,000 feet, while offering an endurance of more than 20 hours.

Its substantial wing hard point payload mounting capacity allows for the simultaneous carriage of multiple sensors. Its internal weapons bay can accommodate up to 3,500 pounds of precision munitions or larger sensor payloads.The Avenger ER employs the same materials and avionics as Predator B and is controlled from the same fully-interoperable GA-ASI Ground Control Stations (GCS) used for operating Predator-series aircraft.

Its low operating cost combined with high-altitude persistence make it an ideal platform to augment existing Low Density High Demand (LDHD) aircraft with long range RADAR, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), communication relay payloads or weapons.

In a contested environment the Avenger platform can penetrate Weapon Engagement Zones (WEZ) of adversary Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (SAMs) without risking human life, or fly with long range sensors outside of the WEZ of even the longest range, strategic SAMs.

Autonomy Advantage

MQ-20 Avenger aircraft are advancing towards full networked autonomy. Experiments and tests, often funded by the company, demonstrate that GA-ASI’s progress in advanced autonomy is unmatched. With over eight million flight hours, GA-ASI is best positioned to lead the way in the new era of aircraft operations.

Traditionally, MQ-9A Reaper operation involved human crews primarily controlling the aircraft through pilot-like controls at a ground station.

In contrast, fully autonomous systems minimise human intervention. Operators set destinations and mission parameters, and the aircraft can operate independently.

These autonomous aircraft rely on software to manage vital systems, including mission equipment, and can communicate with other friendly aircraft for data exchange.

To enhance resilience, aircraft can’t solely rely on continuous satellite links due to potential enemy interference. The right approach is to delegate decision-making to the aircraft itself. It autonomously navigates, scans for points of interest, and takes action upon detection.

Autonomy allows the aircraft to determine when to transmit, resulting in periods of radio silence. Data transmission can occur peer-to-peer, reducing the risk of interference.

Autonomous aircraft like MQ-20 Avenger, demonstrated by GA-ASI, uses laser communication for efficient and disruption-resistant data transmission. In short, autonomy redefines air superiority with numerous collaborative autonomous systems.

In a technical context, imagine the U.S. Air Force countering an adversary’s advanced, low-observable fighters designed to evade radar. To address this, autonomous aircraft with extended endurance and no onboard crew can form a continuous surveillance screen. Equipped with passive sensors, they detect potential aggressors through heat or radio frequency emissions while minimising their own detectability.

This extended presence ensures no gaps for potential enemy exploitation. The abundance of unmanned aircraft can simultaneously surveil potential threats from different angles and ranges, cross-verifying their findings, including the presence of stealthy adversaries.

To get there, GA-ASI’s MQ-20 Avenger are climbing the ladder towards broader and more complete networked autonomy.

Infrared Sensor Teamwork

While it might sound like science fiction, the foundation has been firmly established, thanks to GA-ASI and its collaborators.

In a recent example from late 2022, an Avenger unmanned aircraft cooperated with three human-piloted aircraft, demonstrating multi-platform passive sensing. In this instance, the aircraft detected relevant airborne targets using infrared sensors and communicated amongst themselves to exchange observations acquired from next-generation search-and-track sensors.

A real mission involving four physical aircraft and five “digital twins” simulated through software demonstrated the potential for scalability. This underscores the ability of larger numbers of aircraft to handle similar tasks.

Several other flights have pushed the boundaries of what artificially intelligent pilots can handle aboard Avenger and its digital twins. They have also validated that these aircraft can respond to tasking or mission events in real time and interface with human fighter pilots via a touchscreen tablet interface.

The journey towards achieving large-scale, integrated, autonomous unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) with the U.S. Air Force and high-tech allies is ongoing.

“The concepts demonstrated by these flights set the standard for operationally relevant mission systems capabilities on UCAV platforms,” explained Michael Atwood, GA-ASI’s vice president of advanced programmes. “The combination of airborne high-performance computing, sensor fusion, human-machine teaming and AI pilots making decisions at the speed of relevance shows how quickly GA-ASI’s capabilities are maturing as we move to operationalise autonomy for UCAVs.”

The GA-ASI Avenger serves military and government agencies across various missions, from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to border patrol and combat operations.

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