The team of Rockwell Collins and Cubic Defense Applications, Inc., a defense unit of Cubic Corp., flight tested their new Mini-Common Data Link (CDL) system on a AAI Corp.-Aerosonde Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) platform, the companies said this week. During the testing, the Mini-CDL demonstrated bi-directional communications with the U.S. Marines Corp’s Team Portable-CDL terminal. The Mini-CDL prototype, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, also demonstrated interoperability with the Department of Defense’s existing CDL Rev. F compliant systems. Additional lab testing validated interoperability with the 10.71B waveform. During the tests, the aircraft transmitted high-bandwidth streaming video from an on-board video camera to the ground station below. The air terminal achieved data rates up to 10.7 Mbps, about three times the speed of a typical cable modem. "The integration of this new cutting-edge technology into AAI’s Aerosonde will provide this small, expeditionary unmanned aircraft system with greater capabilities, increased interoperability and the ability to integrate more sophisticated sensors," said Steve Reid, AAI’s vice president of Unmanned Aircraft Systems.