DARPA awards Tern Phase 2 contracts

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded prime contracts for Phase 2 of its Tern joint programme with the US Navy's Office of Naval Research. It announced the contract awards on 23 March.

The Tern programme aims at giving forward-deployed small ships the ability to serve as mobile launch and recovery sites for medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS. These UAS can provide long-range ISR and other capabilities over longer time periods and distances than is possible with current assets, including unmanned and manned helicopters.

AeroVironment and Northrop Grumman are the two prime contractors selected by DARPA for the Tern programme.

The first two phases of this programme focus on preliminary design and risk reduction. The third phase will see one performer selected to build a full-scale demonstrator Tern system for initial ground-based testing. After successful testing, a full-scale, at-sea demonstration of a prototype UAS on an at-sea platform with deck size similar to that of a destroyer or other surface combat vessel would be conducted.

Dan Patt, programme manager, DARPA, said: 'To offer the equivalent of land-based UAS capabilities from small-deck ships, our Phase 2 performers are each designing a new UAS intended to enable two previously unavailable capabilities: one, the ability for a UAS to take off and land from very confined spaces in elevated sea states and two, the ability for such a UAS to transition to efficient long-duration cruise missions.

'Tern's goal is to develop breakthrough technologies that the navy could realistically integrate into the future fleet and make it much easier, quicker and less expensive for the defence department to deploy persistent ISR and strike capabilities almost anywhere in the world.'