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Federal agencies tasked with maintaining control of U.S. borders are increasingly turning to using unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to supply “eyes within the sky,” to identify the movements of drug smugglers and undocumented immigrants.
As a part of this effort, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently awarded a firm-fixed-price contract to Teal Drones, a subsidiary of software and drone manufacturer Red Cat Holdings, to produce aerial systems to be utilized in each daylight and nighttime surveillance operations in border areas. Under a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) with an estimated value of $90 million, Teal shall be one among several federal contractors chosen to supply drones to CBP over a 5-year ordering period.
Teal’s drones “will provide supplemental airborne reconnaissance, surveillance, and tracking capability to boost situational awareness for field commanders and agents in areas that lack nearby traditional surveillance systems or available manned air support,” in line with an organization statement.
The BPA allows any federal agency throughout the Department of Homeland Security to buy drones from Teal, Geoffrey Hitchcock, Red Cat’s senior vp of Global Defense Solutions, said in an interview.
Plans call for the drones to be inbuilt the corporate’s 25,000-square-foot manufacturing and engineering facility in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Under an earlier contract award, Teal had delivered 54 Teal 2 drone systems to CBP last January. Under the present contract, the corporate plans to deliver one other 101 systems to the border agency this month, Hitchcock said. The CBP informed Teal that the initial batch of 54 drones can be deployed at greater than a dozen different locations along each the southern and northern U.S. borders. Hitchcock said he will not be sure where along the borders the newest batch of 101 UAVs can be deployed.
He said that while CBP doesn’t disclose exactly the way it plans to make use of the drones, “the Teal 2 is an intelligence reconnaissance surveillance drone, so that they’re using it each within the northern and the southern border, in areas to place eyes on areas of interest, high-traffic areas. Principally, it gives them an airborne set of eyes, at very distant locations.”
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Hitchcock said the agreement with CBP has led to Teal being awarded with additional, even larger contracts with defense customers, each domestic and foreign. “We’ve received two separate contracts for 342 systems for the Air Force. It’s also opened up some international opportunities for us. We’re delivering systems to the Dutch Ministry of Defense,” he said.
“We’re able now where we’re competing for the Army’s short-range reconnaissance program,” he said. Initially 38 defense contractors had competed for the contract, “and now it’s down between us and one other company, and that program of record must be announced in September,” Hitchcock said.
The seven-year program calls for the event of the subsequent generation of small quadcopters for military use.
“We’re within the technique of working on that offering, which shall be a distinct platform, sort of the newest and biggest. We’re undecided what the name’s going to be without delay. We’re calling it Teal 3,” he said.
The corporate can also be within the running to be one among the defense contractors to be chosen to be a part of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) recently announced Replicator initiative, during which the Pentagon plans to amass multiple 1000’s of “attritable autonomous systems,” similar to small portable drones, over the subsequent two years.
Adapted for surveillance
The specification of the corporate’s Teal 2 drones makes them uniquely qualified to perform the sort of surveillance work required by the CBP and other defense and law enforcement customers, Hitchcock said. With a battery life allowing flights of as much as half-hour – 35 minutes with the addition of a special endurance package – the vehicle has a 5-kilometer range. Its EO/IR (electro-optical/infrared) vision package allows for each day and night surveillance operations.
“The IR payload is best in school without delay, hence our tagline, ‘We dominate the night,’” he said.
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As well as, the Teal 2’s modular design makes it easy for the drone’s end-user to make needed repairs in the sector, without going through the time-consuming technique of sending the drone back to the manufacturer. This feature is particularly popular amongst Teal’s growing base of international customers.
“End-users, especially small buyers, without delay are very concerned about — in the event that they break a drone, having to send the whole drone back,” Hitchcock said. “If you’ve an entity that buys 4 and so they break one, they’ve lost 25 percent of their capability for the couple of months it takes to send it back to the States, get it repaired and get sent back over.”
The drone’s modular design also allows the end-user to adapt it for their very own needs. “You may put greater arms on it, you may put greater batteries on it, you may make it so it’ll carry more weight and secondary and tertiary payloads,” he said.
Hitchcock said the U.S. Department of Defense is especially eager about this capability, because it opens the chance that the drone might be adapted to eventually carrying lethal payloads. Hitchcock said while Teal’s drones currently will not be designed to be armed, “we’re on the brink of start a program that’s going to permit that.”
Teal’s products are certified under the DoD’s Blue UAS program, which designates the drones and software systems which are eligible to be purchased by the U.S. military customers. “That’s an enormous thing right there,” Hitchcock said. “Having that validation is vital on this market space.”
As well as, Red Cat and other U.S.-based defense-oriented drone manufacturers are expected to profit from the recent passage by Congress of the American Security Drone Act, he said. The bipartisan laws, passed into law as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act, prevents any federal government agency from procuring drones from countries similar to China, which are to be deemed national security threats.
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