A drone tether management system has been successfully tested by engineers from the
Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific (PAC) and Naval Surface Warfare Center.
U.S. Navy photo by Jared Soltis
This tethered drone system will eventually be rolled out to U.S Navy’s unmanned surface vehicles (USV) under PMS 406 Program office.
Having a tethered drone offers advantages such as increase power, secure data links and greater communication bandwidth. The drone will be able to carry heavier payloads as batteries are not required to keep the drone airborne.
However, existing commercial systems used a taunt tether which might not be suitable for warships due to choppy sea conditions.
Kurt Talke, NIWC PAC’s primary investigator in the program, came up with the idea to use a slack tether instead of a taut tether. A winch developed in-house will automatically pay out or take in the tether to keep it slacken.
This tethered drone system is similar to DARPA’s Towed Airborne Lift of Naval Systems (TALONS) which uses a tethered parachute to bring sensor’s up to height of 1,000ft.
Both approaches share the same advantage of allowing a warship to deploy an aircraft without requiring a flight deck.
By having the sensors placed higher than traditional ship masts, the range of the sensors improved significantly. During testing by DARPA, it was found that TALONS’ surface-track radar had a range that was 500% longer – six times – than its range at sea level. Its electro-optical/infrared scanner doubled its observed discrimination range.
With the success of the tethered drone system , NIWC PAC plans to move on to testing multi-aircraft operations and swarm flights.
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