AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), and ViaSat entered into a strategic alliance to align AAI’s advanced unmanned aircraft and command and control technologies with ViaSat integrated airborne and terrestrial satellite communications, as well as its Internet Protocol-based networking and security technology.
Under the agreement, the organizations intend to develop and mature beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications capabilities for current and next-generation AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems aircraft.
Along with fellow Textron Systems business Overwatch, AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems and ViaSat collaborate on the Forward Airborne Secure Transmission and Communication, or FASTCOM, system. FASTCOM is an end-to-end, mobile cellular network that accommodates Top Secret smartphone communications. Through this strategic alliance, the two companies can build on the FASTCOM system’s maturity with additional third- and fourth-generation, or 3G and 4G, capability to further enhance battlefield communications, according to the companies.
“The performance and affordability of tactical UAS like our Shadow system make them an invaluable battlefield asset with a growing mission spectrum,” says Senior Vice President and General Manager Steven Reid of AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems. “Our customers’ unmanned assets need to be as flexible and capable as the troops who utilize them, and this new strategic alliance with ViaSat is one way that we’re staying on the leading edge of system development and integration.”