Article Posted on : - Jan 04, 2010

US Army's MQ-5B Hunter Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). Image Credit: Northrop Grumman Corporation.

VIRGINIA (BNS): US Army's MQ-5B Hunter Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) has been equipped and fielded with Tactical Common Data Link (TCDL) by the Northrop Grumman Corporation.

According to a news release by the Northrop Grumman Corporation, the UAS deployed in Afghanistan, has been equipped with TCDL to increase the data transfer rates and double the communications range on the MQ-5B Hunter, thus enabling additional payload capabilities.

TCDL establishes interoperability among different U.S. Department of Defense air vehicles and ground stations and also allows for manned aircraft to use unmanned aircraft, their sensors and weapons.

"When we changed from the RQ-5A to the MQ-5B configuration of Hunter, we doubled the endurance of the air vehicle giving the warfighter a much larger area of coverage," said Drew Telford, Northrop Grumman Technical Services' TCDL program manager.

The MQ-5B Hunter UAS provides the force with state-of-the-art reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA), communications relay, signal intelligence, and weapons delivery.