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  January 19, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  Aerovironment buys Arcturus UAV in $405M deal

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Aerovironment, a leading supplier of unmanned aircraft systems to the U.S. military, has purchased Arcturus UAV for $405 million. Arcturus is currently competing for a $1 billion Army contract to replace the Shadow tactical unmanned aircraft system. Arcturus, which was founded in 2004 in California, specializes in Group 2 and 3 UAS, which run the gamut between drones over 20 pounds and under roughly 1,300 pounds. Army units are evaluating Arcturus' Jump 20 UAS. The drone is competing against Martin UAV and Northrop Grumman's V-Bat, Textron's Aerosonde HQ, and L3Harris Technologies′ FVR-90. The Jump is a multimission, medium-endurance, vertical-takeoff-and-landing system that can become airborne independent of a runway. Arcturus also makes the T-20, a multimission, medium-endurance, catapult-launched system. The Army is moving toward a final request for proposals with its Future Tactical UAS program that will replace the Shadow UAS, so the sale of Arcturus to a much larger UAV company is timely. Aerovironment did not have a path to Group 3 UAS, and bringing Arcturus into the fold fills that gap. According to those following the industry, Aerovironment has products that, when integrated into Arcturus' capabilities, could make for attractive future systems. Being acquired by a larger company like Aerovironment would also help the company become a more serious contender in the Army competition by building up its manufacturing capability to radidly produce UAS in large quantities, which the Army would require if the Jump is selected. The total purchase price of the sale is a combined $355 million in cash and $50 million in Aerovironment stock, according to a Jan. 13 news release. Arcturus previously supplied UAS to U.S. Special Operations Command's $1.4 billion MEUAS III and IV programs, the release noted. “We are excited about the opportunities for value creation through our acquisition of Arcturus UAV, which will enable us to accelerate our growth strategy and expand our reach into the more valuable Group 2 and 3 UAS segments,” Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment president and CEO, said in the statement. “Group 2 and 3 UAS and services, collectively, potentially represent more than one billion dollars in annual contract value, according to an independent forecast,” he added. “Combining our highly complementary products and technologies will enhance our portfolio, deliver top and bottom-line growth, and enable us to provide customers with a complete set of Group 1 through 3 UAS, tactical missile systems, high-altitude pseudo-satellites and unmanned ground vehicle solutions.” With Aerovironment, “we will have greater scale, expanded resources, cutting-edge technology and superior capabilities to meet the growing global demand for our products and solutions,” D'Milo Hallerberg, Arcturus UAV president and CEO, said in the statement. “We are confident that with AeroVironment, we can accelerate our growth as part of a larger, more diverse company and look forward to working closely with the team to complete this exciting transaction.” The transaction is expected to be complete by the final quarter of fiscal 2021, and Arcturus will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Aerovironment. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2021/01/15/aerovironment-buys-arcturus-uav-405m-deal/

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  April 10, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Secretive US cyber force deployed 22 times to aid foreign governments

  “Enhancing the security of government, private sector and critical infrastructure systems grows ever more imperative,” said Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh.

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  February 18, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  DARPA Eyes New Weapon Concepts In 2021 Program Plans

  A multi-target air-to-air weapon and gun-armed close-support missile are among new projects DARPA plans to launch in fiscal 2021. New approaches to communicating in contested environments, attacking signals and countering laser weapons are also on the list. The Defense Department is seeking $3.57 billion in funding for its advanced research projects agency in 2021, an increase of just over 3% from 2020. Among the projects planned for initiation in 2021 is LongShot, for which DARPA is seeking $22 million. LongShot will demonstrate an air-launched weapon system that will use a slower-speed, longer-range air vehicle for transit to the engagement zone where it will launch multiple air-to-air missiles. The weapon will be carried externally on existing fighters or internally on bombers. Multi-mode propulsion will significantly increase engagement range while allowing air-to-air missiles to be launched closer to their targets, reducing reaction time and increasing terminal energy and kill probability. LongShot appears to be a follow-on to the Flying Missile Rail concept revealed by DARPA in 2017. This was a device carrying a pair of AIM-120 air-to-air missiles that could remain under the wing of and F-16 or F/A-18 or fly away from the host aircraft, acting as a booster to extend the range of the missiles. “LongShot will explore new engagement concepts for multi-modal, multi-kill systems that can engage more than one target,” according to DARPA budget documents. Fiscal 2021 funding would take the program through to a preliminary design review for the demonstration system. DARPA is seeking $13.3 million for begin the Gunslinger program to demonstrate a tactical-range weapon that will combine the maneuverability of a missile with ability of a gun to engage different types of target. Envisioned missions are close air support, counter insurgency and air-to-air engagements. Metrics for the system are total range, including transit, loiter and engagement, as well as effectiveness, according to the documents. Development of such a missile system will require vehicle concepts that have the aerodynamic, propulsion and payload to enable a wide operational envelope, says DARPA. Gunslinger will also require “algorithms that support maneuvering and target recognition to enable expedited command decision making for selecting and engaging targets, and approaches to incorporating modularity of design to reduce cost,” the documents say. DARPA is seeking $15.1 million in 2021 for another new project, Counter High Energy Lasers (C-HEL), which aims to develop a system to detect, locate and disrupt energy laser weapons before they can inflict irreversible damage. The project will study novel sensors, protective materials and obscurants as well as optical and kinetic defeat systems. Fiscal 2021 funding would take the project through the conceptual design review for an initial operational C-HEL system and field testing of protective coatings. Developing small photonic terminals that can establish high-bandwidth communications links between microsatellites and mobile platforms is the goal of Portable Optical Integrated Network Transceivers (POINT), a new project for which $9.2 million is sought in 2021. Existing optical terminals with gimballed telescopes are too large for microsatellites, and POINT will leverage the recent developments in optical phased-array transmitters to develop transceivers with no moving parts, dramatically reducing their size, weight and power requirements. Providing tactical beyond-line-of-sight communications in an anti-access/area-denial environment by deploying low-cost expendable repeaters ground vehicles, unmanned aircraft, high-altitude platforms and low-orbiting satellites is the goal of the new Resilient Networked Distributed Multi-Transceiver Communications (RNDMC) project, for which $7.4 million is sought in 2021. Proportional Weapons, for which $6 million is sought in 2021, is a new project to develop a real-time capability to tune the effects of families of munitions to be able to breach a structure, or clear an area, while minimizing collateral damage. “Novel approaches are needed that are absolutely effective from the air or ground against several scales of primarily urban, concealed threats while not being catastrophically destructive,” say DARPA budget documents. Other new projects for fiscal 2021 include: Dynamic Airspace Control ($13.7 million), to develop ways to surveil and manage local airspace without using high-power radar; Non-Kinetic Effects ($7.5 million), to develop new electronic-warfare systems to sense, attack and also protect signals; and Port Defense ($7.4 million), to use expendable unmanned undersea vehicles for mine countermeasures. https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/darpa-eyes-new-weapon-concepts-2021-program-plans