General Atomics - Sky Warrior

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Challenge: General Atomics Aeronautical Systems' (GA-ASI's) Sky Warrior is the next generation high-performance UAS, derived from the combat-proven Predator unmanned aircraft system. Flying up to 29,000 feet, the Sky Warrior is the U.S. Army's new Extended Range/Multi-purpose UAV that will provide surveillance, communications relay, and weapons delivery missions, with more than double the weapons capacity of Predator.

Solution: General Atomics chose the Athena 511, a compact, integrated inertial navigation system, global positioning system (INS/GPS) and air data sensor suite, to provide dual back-up navigation capabilities for the Warrior.

The 511 is a member of our Athena product line of highly sophisticated, compact and affordable INS/GPS and air data, integrated sensor solutions for UAS applications, with optional flight control module.

Athena 511 features used on Sky Warrior include:

• A tactical grade Inertial Measuring Unit (IMU)
• A differential ready GPS receiver
• Built-in tri-axial magnetometer with automatic hard iron compensation
• Built-in air data system pressure transducers including static, airspeed and flow angle measurements
• Kalman filter INS providing high accuracy navigation and control state vector
• Electrical and mechanical design, and manufacturing process that meets military environmental requirements, including temperature, shock, vibration, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and humidity

Results: We continue to work with General Atomics to provide our high performance Athena 511 product for the Sky Warrior production program.