Farnborough 2008 Show News - July 15, 2008 - (Page 48) FA R N B O R O U G H 2 0 0 8 Raytheon Adds to UAV Control Center Network A new Raytheon-built center in Fargo, North Dakota, that is helping to control Predator and Reaper UAVs in foreign theaters will be joined soon by two other centers being built by the company at undisclosed locations. All three, run by the Air National Guard, will help in the growing job of controlling unmanned aerial vehicles as they fly missions in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force is known for controlling far-away Predators and Reapers from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, but the Air National Guard “does a large percentage of the Predator processing, a lot more than most people realize,” says Mark Bigham, business development director of Raytheon tactical intelligence systems. “They’re a very significant player in exploiting and operating Predator missions.” The Fargo Integrated Predator Operations Center, or IPOC, became operational on May 18. “The customers like it,” Bigham says. Operations at the second site are slated to begin this month, and the third should be on line before t h e e n d o f t h e y e a r. Raytheon is doing the work under a $10 million contract from the Air MQ-9 Reapers will be controlled at three new centers run by the Air National Guard. National Guard. In a typical operation, a pilot in a facility near the UAV con“[The Air National Guard] does a large trols its takeoff and landing. Once percentage of the Predator processing, it’s airborne, mission tasking is conducted by satellite and other links a lot more than most people realize. from thousands of miles away. They’re a very significant player in exploit- ing and operating Predator missions.” —Mark Bigham, business development director of Raytheon tactical intelligence systems Raytheon-built Fargo Integrated Predator Operations Center opened May 18. The ANG centers are responsible for such things as “scheduling airplanes on and off station, making sure the crews are there, looking at the weather, looking at the tasking, doing the command and control for lots of different things,” Bigham says. The new centers are a big China Prepared For Olympic Air Traffic Surge China’s Air Traffic Management Bureau (ATMB) expects air traffic in the nation to increase by as much as 30-50% during the Olympics, according to recent Chinese news reports. The ATMB has been preparing for the surge by working for the past five years to modernize the country’s air traffic control to handle the heightened number of flights. In November 2007 China instituted reduced vertical separation minimums (RVSM) procedures in upper airspace to increase the number of altitudes to which aircraft can be assigned in meters (while maintaining approximately 1,000 ft of vertical separation as aircraft do over the U.S. and Europe, instead of the previous 2,000 ft). In addition, Thales Australia provided three new ATC centers in Eastern China that were commissioned in 2004 at Beijing, in 2005 in Shanghai and in 2007 in Guangzhou. The Beijing terminal area is now controlled from the Thales-equipped center in a separate room from the one where controllers handle en route traffic. Thales has set up hot lines in case any last-minute challenges occur, according to Martin U. Ripple, a vice president of Thales Air Systems unit who heads Thales Australia. In addition, Beijing Capital International Airport has built a new runway and a new terminal building. Ripple says that the new terminal is bigger than all of the ones at Heathrow combined. improvement over the old system, he notes. After 9/11, there was a scramble by the Air Force to establish ways to control UAVs in foreign theaters from sites in the U.S., and the result was an ad hoc collection of systems. There was no standardized design, and no standardized training. Raytheon was brought in to rectify the problem, Bigham says. “We not only did a standardized design, but we significantly upgraded the capability.” Open architecture allows for future changes. The new system “dramatically” improves a commander’s situational awareness, Bigham explains. It displays UAV flight tracks and sensor scan areas in 3-D on Google Earth. It also works with the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS), which gives inputs from such other platforms as the U-2 and Global Hawk. In addition, a commander can see areas to avoid, such as those where artillery or missile-firing will take place, and how weather patterns might affect his missions. 48 July 15, 2008 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews
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