Raytheon, DARPA Making UAV Humanitarian Aid Tech; Joe Biondi Comments
Raytheon is developing modular technologies for cargo ships to use unmanned aerial vehicles in humanitarian and other non-combat missions, the company announced Wednesday.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency established the Tactically Expandable Maritime Platform program for new technologies in air and sea cargo transport, cargo transfer and onboard support.
“As we’ve seen through numerous instances over the past several years, the magnitude of humanitarian crises often requires military support, said Joe Biondi, vice president of advanced technology. “At the same time, many of our country’s naval assets are committed to other missions.”
According to the company, a TEMP system can be deployed in less than a day and operates in missions lasting 30 days or greater.
In partnership with two other firms, Raytheon tested an unmanned powered paraglider in March.
The company said Parafoil is designed to lift pallets or loads of aid weighing up to 3,000 pounds, deliver up to 125,000 pounds per day and travel up to 74.5 miles without refueling.
Raytheon also helped make an unmanned crane for moving fully-loaded containers and mission management modules.
DARPA has also enlisted the company’s BBN Technologies subsidiary to create new methods for processing handwritten text.
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