US Army exercises another Raven FCS option
A US Army soldier hand-launches a Raven B UAS in order to have a birds-eye view of the area during a field training exercise at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. (Photo: US Army/Sgt Dustin Biven)
AeroVironment will provide the US Army with avionics and data link upgrade packages for the Raven tactical UAS by July 2022.
The US Army has exercised the second of three contract options with AeroVironment under the sole-source Flight Control Systems (FCS) element of the multi-year Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS) contract.
This $20.98 million contract option means that AeroVironment will provide avionics and data link upgrade packages by July 2022 to modify radio frequencies employed by US Army Raven tactical UAS. A previous FCS option was exercised in July 2020.
The US Army is the biggest single operator of Raven with more than 6,600 of the hand-launched ISR aircraft in its inventory, according to Shephard Defence Insight.
The SUAS has a wingspan of 1.4m and weighs 1.9kg with an operational range of 10km. It is equipped with a Mantis i23 EO/IR gimballed payload for delivery of real-time video or IR imagery to ground control and remote viewing stations.
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