General Atomics Aeronautical Systems said it successfully released a brand new air-launched effects platform made with additive manufacturing from the interior weapons bay of an MQ-20 Avenger unmanned system.
The corporate partnered with Divergent Technologies, Inc. to design and construct the Advanced Air-Launched Effects vehicle, or A2LE, using Divergent’s Adaptive Production System (DAPS) “to support rapid, low-cost manufacturing of the demonstration vehicle,” it said in a press release.
The Nov. 28 demonstration at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, showed additive manufacturing, also generally known as 3-D printing, early within the design process can create efficiencies, the corporate said. It’s a key step in validating AM process and material properties for incorporation in future systems to be employed by each manned and unmanned platforms.
The flight was “a vital first step in demonstrating GA-ASI’s ability to rapidly develop, manufacture, and test a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (SUAS) in a controlled, low-risk approach,” Mike Atwood, company vp of advanced programs, said within the statement. “A2LE demonstrates the coupling of GA-ASI’s pedigreed aircraft design capabilities with Divergent’s DAPS, paving the best way for continued maturation of reasonably priced, modular SUAS platforms that could be tailored to fulfill warfighter needs at a fraction of the fee and lead time of currently fielded systems.”
The corporate is planning a network of A2LEs providing a “persistent, expansive grid” for surveillance, attack, enemy air defense suppression or communication pathways, in response to the statement, while enhancing current and future manned and unmanned platforms with increased capability.
The U.S. Army has been extensively evaluating launched effects for roughly five years and is considering several size classes of launched effects. It’s evaluating an initial small, launched-effects prototype – a collaboration between Anduril Industries, RTX’s Collins Aerospace and Aurora Flight Sciences – because it experiment swith requirements and capabilities for a future program.
The service plans to launch these small, uncrewed aircraft not only from air platforms, but from launchers on the bottom or off vehicles. It has demonstrated the capabilities several times, including on the service’s first Edge exercise in 2021, which experiments with technology to reinforce operations within the aerial tier.
General Atomics demonstrated one other ALE — the Eaglet — that the corporate deployed from a Gray Eagle UAS a 12 months ago.
The Eaglet would slot in the massive class, the corporate said, which translates to having the power to hold a wide range of more powerful sensors and payloads. The Gray Eagle would still find a way to hold it for hundreds of kilometers before launching it. A2LE is taken into account to slot in the small category.
“General Atomics has been approaching the long run of uninhabited aerial vehicles and systems from a ‘family of systems’ approach,” said C. Mark Brinkley, a spokesman. “Whether air launched or ground launched, recoverable or expendable, we see these aircraft as offering different options configured for various missions.”
The corporate is working on several launched effects offerings along with Eaglet and A2LE like Sparrowhawk and LongShot, Brinkley added.
“All of those are similar and all of them are different, however the primary theme here is reasonably priced mass at scale, attacking quite a lot of problems in quite a lot of ways,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be fair to match these aircraft head-to-head at this point, because they’re all being driven by different requirements and intended uses,” Brinkley noted, “but each of those programs are absolutely leveraging best practices and lessons learned from one program to the following to assist us iterate and innovate in a short time.”
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.