Cubic to work on SUAS common data link programme

12th August 2014 - 13:21 GMT | by The Shephard News Team

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Cubic has been selected for a programme that aims to provide a common data link (CDL) for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS). The company has been awarded a $1.8 million contract from Idaho National Laboratory covering Phase one of a two-phase programme to develop a CDL for UAVs.

Cubic is one of five companies selected for phase one of the programme, each of which will complete a specified portion of the waveform development for a next-generation CDL known as Bandwidth Efficient Common Data Link (BE-CDL Rev B).

The BE-CDL Rev B system will be used for the communication of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and command and control (C2) data, including full-motion video and sensor feeds, from UAVs to other military communications devices.

Cubic’s CDL system has already received the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) specification compliance verification. The development and deployment of this system will ensure SUAS ISR and C2 data transmissions are secure and expeditious, while using a narrower swath of RF frequencies than the standard CDL (STD-CDL) more commonly used today.

Dave Schmitz, president, Cubic Defense Systems, said: ‘We strive to continually provide innovative communications solutions to our customers and we are proud to be selected to provide a BE-CDL Rev B solution. With our offering, we provide a robust, low-latency, high-capacity network supporting tomorrow's needs today.’