US Navy completes UAS Common Control System demo

The US Navy has announced the completion of a demonstration for its unmanned aircraft Common Control System (CCS) in California.

Developed by the Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons (PEO (U&W)), CCS is a software-only solution for fixed, mobile and dismounted hardware configurations. It is intended to address common requirements for current and future unmanned aircraft systems.

During the demonstration at China Lake, operators used the CCS to control a simulated UAS and associated sensors tasked by special forces operatives. The UAS identified and tracked a hostile moving target and sent images of the target to an air controller.

The UAS data created a precise coordinate so that a net-enabled weapon (NEW) could strike. The UAS and NEW controller were then used together to perform a battle damage assessment.

The navy’s CCS, managed by the Strike Planning and Execution Systems program office (PMA-281), used a sample of services developed under the Office of Secretary of Defense’s UAS Control Segment architecture for this demonstration. Multiple vendors developed these sample services and the user interface, which were successfully integrated to provide modular capabilities within one software system.

'The demonstration verified that service-oriented techniques can help create a set of reusable, independently developed, software services for control of unmanned systems,' said Mike Paul, the navy’s CCS programme manager, in a 1 November statement.

'The flexibility of the CCS framework and the government led integration efforts allows the system to efficiently address similar requirements for unmanned vehicles, yet meet the unique requirements of each vehicle in a highly efficient manner.'

According to Paul, CCS is a unique acquisition approach that maximizes competition and shortens timelines to deliver capabilities.

The navy’s CCS is currently being developed for the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance System and Medium Range Maritime Unmanned Air System and will be available for use with other unmanned vehicles, including air, surface and subsurface, in the future.

“The CCS approach leverages off of the investments and capabilities that exist today to smartly embrace a modular, scalable open architecture for unmanned systems,” said Rear Adm. Bill Shannon, PEO (U&W) program executive officer.